in 1833 josiah preist published a book titled american antiquities and discoveries in the west. 22,000 copies sold. He talked about the mounds and went so far as to say that Noah's Ark came to rest in America. Wonder who got his idea of America beng special from this info. Preist also speculated on who were the mound builders. One idea was the Israelites.

Imagine trying to figure out were a group of people came from when your primary historical reference is the Bible. Of course people are going to assume they are from the lost tribes of Israel.

In the late 18th century there were two camps. One camp said the American Indians were part of the lost 10 tribes. The other was made up of historians and early scientists who said wait for more data. Even Thomas Jefferson chimed in. He had the first good archaeological report from a mound and said we didn't have enough info to say who built the mounds.

The Book of Mormon is a historical novel, a book of fiction, based on the ideas of American prehistory that were prevalent among white Americans in the 1820'es. Josiah Priest is only one of many possible influences on the Book of Mormon. To understand the book we need to do historical research, not into antiquity, but into America in the first quarter of the nineteenth century. As one critic at that time said, the book treats of all the great issues that had been debated in Upper New York the ten years before it was published.