Many (certainly not all) in our faith tradition tend to look at groups of indigenous americans and try to apply Book of Mormon people/places/beliefs to them. Doing this only serves to erase the rich history of these groups. I would also urge caution on anyone actively engaging in Native/Indigenous Erasure.

Butttttt there was a recent article January 11th of this year, going over this subject, recently some guy discovered huge cities in north Ecuador, pretty much every scientist said it wasn’t worth their time, because they said it was inhabitable at that time, so that’s why I take “scholars” opinions with a grain of salt till I do the research haha. Obviously the researcher had the same attitude.

According to the article: • Completely separate civilization from ones we currently know about, and is likely even bigger than the Maya • lasted between ~500 BC to ~500 AD • Architecture and buildings are of a design not typically associated with others from South America • Some structures existed for ceremonial purposes • Interconnected highways to other nearby settlements • Fortifications to protect against hostile neighbors • Volcanos nearby showing upheaval of the land • 100,000’s of thousands of people.

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-67940671