Archaeology and the Book of Mormon hand, flourished in Mesoamerica during the Preclassic period, dating from 1200 BC to about 400 BC. The Olmec civilization suddenly disintegrated for unknown reasons, although archaeological evidence clearly indicates a definite Olmec influence within the Maya civilization that followed. Although the Olmec civilization ended, there are indications that some of the Olmec people survived and interacted with other cultures. While making allowance for the likelihood that Book of Mormon peoples migrated to Mexico and Central America, Joseph Smith nevertheless placed the arrival of the Jaredites in "the lake country of America", i.e., the region of the Great Lakes). No Central
Mayan languages mean "on (top of) the mountain". Thus in the Classical Quiché of the "Popol Vuh" we read "u-wach ulew" "on the earth" (literally "its face the earth"). Mayan languages are ergative in their alignment. This means that the subject of an intransitive verb is treated similarly to the object of a transitive verb, but differently from the subject of a transitive verb. Mayan languages have two sets of affixes that are attached to a verb to indicate the person of its arguments. One set (often referred to in Mayan grammars as set B) indicates the person of subjects of intransitive