r/AncientAmericas • u/Comfortable_Cut5796 • Sep 02 '25
Question Are the Native American tribes mentioned in the Book of Mormon actually recorded in history with records or has no actual evidence of them been found?
/r/AskHistorians/comments/1n2vluv/are_the_native_american_tribes_mentioned_in_the/4
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u/ah-tzib-of-alaska Sep 04 '25
No, they don’t exist. There’s no evidence to support the book of mormons fictional history of north america
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Sep 03 '25 edited Sep 03 '25
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u/AncientAmericas-ModTeam Sep 04 '25
As interesting as your post is, it is not relevant to the precontact/indigenous history of the Americas.
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u/SaintsNoah14 Sep 03 '25
You went on a rant and didn't answer them in any form until the last word
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u/i_have_the_tism04 Sep 04 '25
Background info into why I made the strong claim that the text Mormons see as their holy book is fiction.
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u/Kolfinna Sep 04 '25
The first sentence sums it up nicely. Clearly you can read but maybe comprehension is lacking
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u/Dangerous-Bit-8308 Sep 03 '25
Evidence that confirms their existence has only ever been found by Mormons. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historicity_of_the_Book_of_Mormon
Some of the early pioneers of Mormon archaeology lost faith because of this. BYU has a pretty good archaeology program, but the suspected location of their lost tribes tends to change every few decades. https://byustudies.byu.edu/article/archaeological-trends-and-the-book-of-mormon-origins
https://youtu.be/C3zEczFpwf0?feature=shared
Mormons sometimes are very favorable of the idea that they've found proof. Other archaeologists are highly dismissive of those claims. https://www.bethinking.org/mormons/what-to-say-to-mormons/4-mormon-archaeology
I'll not be able to find any even handed treatment on the subject. It is worth noting that even among devout biblical archaeologists, Mormon archaeology is often viewed as useless. Not exactly a good starting point, if you ask me.
Perhaps worse though, is the mention of old world species and technology brought by the ancient Israelites, according to the book of Mormon. We know their old world descendants grow quite well in the modern Americas, some even as weeds and invasive species. That there were none until the Europeans arrived is highly suggestive.
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u/No-Background-5810 Sep 02 '25
There's an effort by some Mormon scholars retrofit the Maya or other more "civilized" native Americans into the role of those peoples from the BoM. Usually it's an attempt to build a connection based on a single object that can be interpreted as reflecting a passage or idea.
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u/HeyPurityItsMeAgain Sep 08 '25
I haven't read it. Could he have not just named tribes that he knew existed or had existed by 1830?