. . . the Book of Mormon clearly requires metal-working as an undeniably physical presence because the royal records are kept on metal plates. The plates delivered to Joseph Smith attest to Nephite abilities with metal. To date, archaeological confirmation of these abilities at the time mentioned in the Book of Mormon does not exist.

Linguistic data provide hope that archaeology might yet make a discovery that would alter our understanding of metallurgy dating in Mesoamerica. A word for metal has been reconstructed in the Mixe-Zoquean vocabulary (*ting-kuy). This is the language group that would have been spoke during Jaredite times. It is therefore certain that there was metal, else there would be no reason to have the word. However, it would have referred to the iron ore and not to smelted metal. Confirmation of early metal-working is still absent.