Many cultures

I realized tonight that there is a difference between the nations described in the Book of Mormon and the nations identified by modern archeologists. The Book of Mormon categorizes all the people in it’s chronicles under one of three headings: Nephites, Lamanites, and Jaredites. On the other hand it also describes neighbor separate gross are various times that are all called Nephites who would almost certainly be identified by modern archeologists as separate nationalities. People like the Mulekites before they were joined by the Nephites under Mosiah, or the people of Zeniff who settled apart from the land of Zerahemla for multiple generations, or the people of Ammonihah who Alma treated as fellow Nephites but who were clearly living under a distinct belief system. Similar splits were documented among the Lamanites and Jaredites.