The Book of Mormon is presented as the history of real civilizations in the Americas, but archaeology and genetics have not found the world it describes.

The Book of Mormon tells of large, literate, iron-using civilizations in the ancient Americas, with horses and chariots, ending in battles of hundreds of thousands. Mainstream archaeology has found no trace of these peoples, their cities, their script, or the animals and metals the text places there in those times. Genetic studies of Native Americans point to Asian, not Near Eastern, origins, which is difficult for the text’s account of an Israelite migration. The church’s own essay on DNA acknowledges the genetic picture and offers a limited-geography reading in response. This is a case where a scripture makes checkable historical claims, so it is fair and important to check them.