A year ago, Prof. Michael Coe gave a three-part interview on Mormon Stories in which he claimed there is virtually no evidence of any archeology in Mesoamerica that supports the Book of Mormon. Unfortunately, this belief is pretty widespread — we have had several commenters come to M* claiming the same thing.
John Sorenson has been writing about this issue for decades. I would like to bring your attention to this open letter that he sent to Michael Coe on this issue.
To be clear: Prof. Sorenson believes that there are more than 400 clear “correspondences” between the Book of Mormon and the Mesoamerican cultural and archeological record. As Prof. Sorenson says:
Finally, I have a large book in the editing process that deals with these matters in greater depth. (The ninety-seven-page list of references includes twenty-one of your writings.) When it is in print, I will be pleased to send you a copy. It presents 420 correspondences between the text of the Book of Mormon and Mesoamerican cultural patterns and archaeological sequences. On that basis, I maintain there is no alternative to understanding that the Book of Mormon (“Mormon’s Codex”) could only have originated from the hands of a native Mesoamerican writer and that scholars will do well to study it seriously, not flippantly.
I urge latter-day Saints interested in this subject to read Dr. Sorenson’s letter and to get a copy of his book when it comes out. I discuss more of Dr. Sorenson’s work here. I would be interested to see if Prof. Coe ever responded to Prof. Sorenson’s letter.