. . . many of the cultural elements, practices, metaphors, and allusions in the latter part of the Book of Mormon appear to be Mesoamerian. These include such things as writing and record keeping, cannibalism, large-scale warfare, human sacrifice, conquest of cities by capturing the central “tower” or pyramid (Moro. 9:7), combat weaponry, cotton armor (Alma 49:6), metaphors for the countenance of god in statuary (Alma 5), representations of trees growing out of human hearts (Alma 32), a directional system of four quarters, pagan beliefs of gods inhabiting an underworld (Alma 18;31), and many other items (see Sorenson, Images). Moreover, the chronology of the rise and fall of civilized peoples, the relative locations of these civilizations, and the extreme fluctuations in populations recorded in the Book of Mormon correspond reasonably well with these reconstructed archaeologically in the last thirty years for Middle America (Sorenson, Ancient).