Quick Start to Cumorah: Wayne May’s Case for the Book of Mormon in North America

Presented by Wayne May, April 11, 2019

An in-depth summary of Wayne May’s presentation, organized around the archaeological sites, scripture passages, historical accounts, and geographical connections he discusses.

Video presentation: Quick Start to Cumorah by Wayne May.

Wayne May’s “Quick Start to Cumorah” presents a cumulative argument for locating Book of Mormon history in the North American Heartland. His approach brings together the earthworks of the American Midwest, descriptions of fortifications in Alma, proposed linguistic connections, statements associated with Joseph Smith, and his own investigations of a property across the Mississippi River from Nauvoo, Illinois. The central question running through the presentation is straightforward: What happens when readers compare the Book of Mormon’s physical descriptions with places they can still visit and walk today?

May organizes his answer around three principal subjects: mound-builder fortifications, language and script, and what Joseph Smith knew about Book of Mormon geography. He then develops an extended account of his proposed Zarahemla temple site in Iowa before returning to the Hill Cumorah in New York and the scriptural identity of the promised land.

Source note: This article follows the presentation transcript and presents May’s arguments as his arguments, without adding a competing geographical interpretation. Timestamps refer to the transcript. Obvious transcription errors have been normalized where the identification is clear; uncertain names, dates, and slide-only information are identified rather than supplied from guesswork. Scripture links lead to the Church’s online editions. Where May alludes to scripture without naming a verse, the corresponding passage is labeled as a related reference rather than a reference he explicitly gave.

Wayne May’s Websites

1. The Starting Point: One Cumorah and a Larger North American Geography

Two hills or one?

Early in the presentation, May frames the geographical discussion around “two hills or one.” His concern is the relationship between the New York hill associated with the recovery of the Book of Mormon plates and the Cumorah of the Book of Mormon’s concluding battles. His presentation argues for retaining Cumorah in New York while understanding the surrounding history within a much larger North American landscape.

May also distinguishes his position from a geographically restricted Great Lakes model. He describes an attempt to place the entire Book of Mormon within a relatively small area around Lake Erie, Lake Ontario, and Cumorah. In his account, that approach encounters chronological difficulties because the archaeological record cited for a substantial population in that restricted area does not extend far enough backward to accommodate the earlier Book of Mormon narrative. His proposed solution is not to abandon New York Cumorah, but to expand the geographical frame.

“You have to go big,” he says in substance. For May, the Mississippi Valley and the broader Midwest supply the necessary setting, and statements associated with Joseph Smith support looking across that larger region.

The chronological parallel he emphasizes

May identifies the Hopewell mound builders as the principal archaeological population in his presentation. He places their chronology at approximately 550 BC to AD 400, then compares that span with the Book of Mormon’s beginning around 600 BC, the final Nephite battle in AD 385, and Moroni’s closing record in AD 421. These are the chronological parallels he asks his audience to keep in mind throughout the talk.

The corresponding scriptural references include 1 Nephi 1:4, which places the opening narrative in the reign of Zedekiah; Mormon 6:5, which gives the year AD 385; and Moroni 10:1, which places Moroni’s final writing more than 420 years after the sign of Christ’s coming.

May’s larger argument depends on convergence: dates, structures, historical statements, and geographical relationships that he believes reinforce one another.

2. Why May Begins with the Fortifications in Alma

Presentation segment: approximately 4:23–7:54

Asked what he would show someone if time were limited, May says he would begin with mound-builder forts and compare them with Alma 48–62. He points to surviving earthworks in Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and New York as places where visitors can examine the physical features themselves.

He calls his checklist the “big eight”:

Banks of earth.
Walls of stone.
Places of resort.
Deliberately designed places of entrance.
Deep ditches.
Towers.
Timber structures built to the height of a man.
An arrangement allowing Lamanites to occupy the east side of a city while Nephites enter from the west.

May’s foundational passage is Alma 48:8, which describes Moroni strengthening his armies, erecting small forts or places of resort, throwing up banks of earth, and building walls of stone. The combination matters to May: the passage does not require every defensive structure to look alike. It describes earth, stone, enclosed spaces, and smaller refuges within the same military landscape. (Additional source: Alma 48.)

He next uses Alma 49:18–20. These verses describe high banks, deep ditches, and an entrance defended by strong men with swords and slings. May reads these as practical architectural details rather than merely general references to warfare.

The timber-and-tower description comes from Alma 50:2–4: timbers stand on ridges of earth, pickets rise above them, and towers overlook the defenses. The transcript garbles the chapter reference at this point, but the quoted wording belongs to Alma 50.

His final example is Alma 62:20–24, the nighttime entry into Nephihah. This passage becomes especially important when he discusses the scale of the Ohio enclosures.

3. Miamisburg Mound: Preservation Before Interpretation

Presentation segment: approximately 0:25–2:04

Before developing his geographical case, May opens with a preservation complaint involving Miamisburg Mound in Miamisburg, Ohio. The transcript renders “Adena” imperfectly, but that is the cultural designation he appears to be using. He contrasts signs telling visitors to stay off the mound with photographs of maintenance work that, in his description, stripped away vegetation, grass, and sod.

His concern is erosion. He argues that removing the protective ground cover in summer could leave the mound vulnerable to gullies during heavy rain. He says he understood that similar clearing occurred about every four years. The example establishes his broader concern that the treatment and interpretation of ancient earthworks can affect what remains available for future investigation.

This opening also introduces the personal tone of the presentation. May speaks as someone who visits sites, photographs their features, leads tours, and objects when he believes important evidence is being damaged or overlooked.

4. Ditches, Berms, Water, and Escape Routes

Newark’s Great Circle

Presentation segment: approximately 8:02–8:26

May first illustrates the scale of ancient ditches with examples that require a person standing inside them to appreciate their depth. He argues that these were substantial public works, not projects undertaken by a handful of families.

At the Great Circle in Newark, Ohio, he notes that the ditch lies on the inside of the enclosure. He distinguishes that arrangement from other examples where the ditch lies outside the wall. His presentation therefore acknowledges variation among the earthworks even as he argues that the wider landscape contains the components described in Alma.

Indian Point, also called the Lyman site

Presentation segment: approximately 8:26–10:17

May next discusses Indian Point, which he identifies with the older name “Lyman Hill Fort.” He introduces it as a site near the Kirtland Temple in Ohio that Rod brought to his attention. The Indian Point/Lyman identification is also reflected in Ohio historical documentation.

May describes two principal defensive lines across the approach to a steep-sided point of land. In his explanation, ditches stand before raised berms, and wooden walls would have stood on top. He uses digitally reconstructed images to show the arrangement he envisions.

Water is central to his interpretation. He argues that higher water levels would have made the surrounding terrain more protective and would have provided a rear escape route by boat if the forward defenses failed. He also says that a rear feature had been removed by park management. These are presented as his reconstruction of how the site functioned.

Pollock Earthworks

Presentation segment: approximately 11:03–13:26

At Pollock, May emphasizes the survival of the earthworks in comparatively undisturbed condition. He describes substantial berms, an entrance, a limestone-paved approach, and evidence of wooden structures. He credits archaeologist Robert Riordan with investigating earthwork walls and entrances rather than focusing only on portable artifacts.

May explains post molds as traces left in the soil by former wooden posts. These traces, he says, allow investigators to follow the course of stockades and identify the footprints of towers. He is more cautious about the appearance of gates: his reconstructions show possible gates, but he explicitly states that their exact form is unknown.

Again, he interprets a rear opening in relation to water. In the landscape he reconstructs, occupants could escape by canoe, raft, or another small craft if attackers breached the main approach. His interpretation links earthwork design to transportation and topography, not just to walls viewed in isolation.

An unnamed West Virginia enclosure

May also shows an enclosure in West Virginia. He calls it an early Hopewell site to be investigated, but says its original records disappeared. The transcript does not preserve a dependable site name or city. His emphasis remains the same: when reconstructed water levels are added, the enclosure’s location and possible escape arrangements become easier to understand.

This leads him to Book of Mormon shipping. He suggests that boatbuilding knowledge may have persisted among the Mulekites and their descendants. The related passage is Alma 63:5–8, which describes Hagoth building ships near Bountiful and the departure of passengers by sea. May alludes to this account without giving the verse numbers.

5. Geometry and the Size of Ancient Enclosures

Liberty Earthworks

Presentation segment: approximately 10:25–11:03

May uses Liberty Earthworks to emphasize engineering and scale. He gives the square enclosure’s wall dimensions as approximately 12 feet high and 50 feet wide, with each side extending about two-thirds of a mile. Those measurements, he says, concern the square alone, not the associated circles and other portions of the complex.

He argues that repeated geometric designs demonstrate knowledge of mathematics, surveying, and planned construction. The ability to reproduce circles and squares in different places is, for him, evidence of a sophisticated building tradition.

Newark and the problem of two armies inside one city

Presentation segment: approximately 21:29–22:41

May says he once struggled to visualize the Nephihah account. How could Moroni’s men enter a city at night, remain inside its walls, and avoid detection by an opposing army?

The passage specifies that the Lamanites camped on the east near the entrance, while Moroni’s men descended on the west using cords and ladders. When morning came, the Lamanites discovered the Nephites inside and fled through the pass. Alma 62:20–24 supplies those details.

May’s answer is scale. Using Newark, he describes a distance of approximately two miles between the Great Octagon and Great Circle and an extensive connected enclosure system. He presents these works as an illustration of how much space an ancient enclosed settlement could contain. His point is that two forces occupying different parts of a very large enclosure need not be close enough to detect each other immediately.

Seip Earthworks and familiar monuments

Presentation segment: approximately 22:41–23:54

At Seip Earthworks, May uses a visual comparison rather than another list of measurements. He places representations of the Great Pyramid of Giza, Stonehenge, the Roman Colosseum, and the Statue of Liberty within the earthwork plan.

These monuments serve only as scale comparisons in his presentation. He is not proposing that their builders constructed Seip. His purpose is to help the audience imagine the hundreds of acres and long perimeter walls involved in the North American complexes.

6. Fort Ancient: Posts, Gateways, and Habitation

Presentation segment: approximately 14:25–19:16

Fort Ancient receives one of the presentation’s most sustained discussions. May divides the complex into the North Fort, Middle Fort, and South Fort, then focuses on particular excavations, wall sections, and an entrance he labels “55A.”

He credits Richard Morgan with documenting post molds in a wall excavation in 1946. He then discusses subsequent work by Robert Connolly and Patricia Essenpreis, whose names are badly distorted in several places in the transcript. Their work at Fort Ancient, including reexamination of earlier wall cuts, is independently documented.

May reads report language describing circular soil stains as likely post molds and a palisade-type structure as a plausible interpretation of an early construction sequence. For him, these findings support the possibility of wooden superstructures associated with earthen embankments.

At entrance 55A, he describes limestone slabs, paired raised features that he interprets as tower locations, and an elevated approach. His reconstructed image adds wooden towers and a gate. As at Pollock, he distinguishes the reconstructed gate’s uncertain appearance from the ground features on which he bases the broader illustration.

May also discusses a house cluster in the northern part of the enclosure. He reports dates ranging from approximately 390 BC to AD 380 and contrasts those findings with statements he says he heard that no one lived inside Fort Ancient until around AD 1300. He treats the earlier habitation evidence as significant because it overlaps the Book of Mormon chronology he is emphasizing.

He names curator Jack Blosser and archaeologist Bradley Lepper in recounting disagreements about how the enclosure should be understood. May objects to interpreting earthworks exclusively as sacred or ceremonial centers when, in his view, evidence may also support habitation and defensive use. His criticism is part of the presentation’s argument about how archaeological remains should be read.

7. Spruce Hill and Old Stone Fort

Spruce Hill

Presentation segment: approximately 16:11–16:51

May describes Spruce Hill as another unusually valuable surviving enclosure. He says supporters raised $350,000 and that the upper property was purchased by the Arc of Appalachia. He places the fundraising roughly ten years before the presentation, without supplying an absolute year.

He also refers to evidence of burned wooden structures associated with the walls. The researcher’s name at this point is not reliably recoverable from the transcript, so it should not be confidently assigned to a particular archaeologist. May’s substantive point is that burning and post evidence may help reconstruct what once stood above the surviving earth or stone.

Old Stone Fort, Manchester, Tennessee

Presentation segment: approximately 19:16–20:26

May then moves to Old Stone Fort in Manchester, Tennessee, associated in his discussion with the Duck River. He describes stone walls built as dry masonry and wooden posts used to increase their height. He also describes rounded tower forms in a museum illustration.

The transcript’s dating sequence is garbled, but it clearly includes AD 30 and AD 430; an intervening date cannot be recovered confidently. May’s intended point is that the dates he shows overlap the Book of Mormon period.

His travel directions also contain an uncertain interstate number in the transcript. The dependable location information he supplies is Manchester, Tennessee, on a journey south from Nashville toward Florida. The site name and city are more reliable identifiers than the transcribed road number.

8. Entrances as Deliberate Defensive Designs

Presentation segment: approximately 20:26–21:29

May illustrates a constricted entrance at an Ohio earthwork whose name is transcribed approximately as “demos.” Without a readable slide or a clearer spoken name, the exact site cannot be securely identified.

His explanation is nevertheless clear. Walls and ditches prevent attackers from approaching across a broad front. The entrance channels them into a narrow space, where defenders can concentrate missiles and maintain fresh troops behind the opening. May characterizes the resulting arrangement as a crossfire and a controlled killing zone.

He connects the illustration directly to Alma 49:20–22. In that passage, strong men defend the entrance, attackers repeatedly fail to force the pass, and attempts to break down the banks expose them to stones and arrows.

For May, the importance lies in the entire defensive system: ditch, bank, wall, entrance, and interior defenders working together. A mound viewed by itself does not communicate the same military logic as an enclosure understood as an integrated structure.

9. Southern Illinois and Lachoneus’s Gathering

Presentation segment: approximately 23:54–26:44

May next discusses 41 hilltop forts across southern Illinois between the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers. He says he personally visited 15 and obtained the larger count through conversations with Illinois Department of Natural Resources personnel. Some sites, he explains, are difficult to reach or lie on private property.

He describes steep bluffs with stone barriers across their most accessible approaches. Some upper areas, he says, cover 50 to 60 acres. At one example, a narrow rear route accommodates only one person at a time, making it easy to defend. Early settlers later used some of these spaces as cattle enclosures.

The transcript appears to identify one example as “War Bluff,” although the spelling and precise locality remain uncertain. The safest geographical description from the spoken material is a southern Illinois bluff-fort landscape between the two major rivers.

May associates these places with Governor Lachoneus’s gathering of the people against the Gadianton robbers. The related passages are 3 Nephi 3:13–16, 22–26 and 3 Nephi 4:1–4. They describe gathering people and provisions, constructing fortifications, and preparing to withstand the robbers.

May gives approximately AD 50 for the archaeological examples and AD 16 for Lachoneus’s preparations. He regards that proximity as useful for his comparison rather than insisting on an exact year-for-year match.

10. Language, Names, and Cultural Memory

Presentation segment: approximately 27:17–32:26

May’s second main category is language. He quotes Brian Stubbs to the effect that demonstrable relationships among languages can provide especially strong evidence because a living language family, preserved among thousands of speakers, cannot simply be manufactured in the way an isolated artifact might be.

He then quotes Charles Mann on glottochronology, a method intended to estimate when related languages diverged. As May presents the quotation, comparisons among Algonquian languages point toward a common ancestral language in the Northeast a few centuries before Christ, with a possible relationship to Hopewell culture. May sees the timing and region as reinforcing his archaeological argument.

The presentation moves from language families to names. May calls attention to endings in biblical names, Book of Mormon names, and Native American names shown on a slide. The transcript preserves examples such as Isaiah, Noah, Mosiah, Zarahemla, Amalickiah, and Nephi, but not a reliable list of the Native American chiefs’ names. Those slide-only names cannot be reproduced accurately from the attachment.

He credits Ryan Fischer with finding a dictionary comparison involving the letters “RIP” in words associated with rivers or lakes. May compares that with Ripliancum in Ether 15:8, where the name is interpreted as “large, or to exceed all.” The transcript does not identify the dictionary’s title or author. (Additional reference from the original article: Interpretation, Interpret.)

May also discusses words and signs that he associates with earlier temple practice and Native American traditions. He refers to Ojibwe, Cree, and Choctaw contexts and mentions Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Tennessee. Because the relevant words appear to have been displayed rather than fully spoken, their exact forms are not recoverable from the transcript.

Finally, he interprets an image of a frontiersman greeting a Native leader as an example of a recognition sign. In his explanation, such a sign could communicate that a visitor had already been accepted as a friend and could receive hospitality in the chief’s absence.

11. What Joseph Smith Knew: Missions, Letters, and the Midwest

Presentation segment: approximately 32:33–35:48

May’s third major category is Joseph Smith’s geographical knowledge. He first argues that historical references to “the West” must be read in their early nineteenth-century setting. In the documents he discusses, he emphasizes Ohio and lands beyond the Appalachian Mountains rather than automatically imagining the modern Pacific West.

He connects this discussion with the mission to the Lamanites and Doctrine and Covenants 32. His list includes Oliver Cowdery, Parley P. Pratt, Ziba Peterson, and Peter Whitmer Jr., and he cites History of the Church, volume 1, pages 118–120. He emphasizes missionary contacts in New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.

May next discusses Joseph Smith’s correspondence with a Rochester newspaper editor named Seaton. He dates the response to February 12, 1833, and highlights Joseph’s statement that the original letter had been written by commandment. From the geographical portion, May stresses the description of the Book of Mormon as a record of the forefathers of the “Western tribes of Indians” and their descent from Joseph who was sold into Egypt.

The related biblical account of Joseph’s sale is Genesis 37:23–28. May invokes Joseph’s identity but does not name a Genesis chapter or verse.

He then turns to Joseph Smith’s letter to Emma describing travel across the “plains of the Nephites,” movement among their mounds, and the discovery of bones and skulls. May says he first encountered this letter in 1989. He interprets its language against the geographical background of the Hopewell heartland through which Joseph’s company traveled.

12. Zelph, Onandagus, Manti, and the Wentworth Letter

Zelph Mound

Presentation segment: approximately 35:56–38:32

May describes the Zelph account in Illinois as an especially important connection between Joseph Smith and the ancient Midwest. He emphasizes a three-tiered stone altar said to have stood on the mound and interprets Joseph’s recognition of its ancient order as evidence of knowledge gained through revelation.

The account identifies Zelph as a warrior and chieftain associated with the prophet Onandagus. May highlights wording extending Onandagus’s renown from Cumorah or the eastern sea to the Rocky Mountains. He proposes Lake Ontario as the eastern sea relevant to his reading.

He also discusses differences among published versions of the account, referring to Times and Seasons, volume 6, and a date transcribed as January 6, 1846. His explanation of twentieth-century editions contains inconsistent dates in the attachment, so the exact publication sequence cannot be confidently reconstructed from the transcript alone.

May reports archaeological investigations during the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. He gives an initial date of approximately AD 250, plus or minus a century, followed by a narrower range of AD 350–380. He connects the latter range with the final Nephite-Lamanite struggles.

Manti at Huntsville, Missouri

Presentation segment: approximately 38:40–39:25

May cites Kirtland Camp records identifying Huntsville, Randolph County, Missouri, as the ancient site of Manti. He names Samuel D. Tyler and gives September 25, 1838, for the journal entry. The transcript’s earlier “1938” is an evident transcription error in this nineteenth-century context.

He regards Huntsville’s position south of his proposed Zarahemla in Iowa as geographically meaningful. A related passage, Alma 22:27, situates Manti within the southern border description near the head of the river Sidon.

The Wentworth Letter and Letter VII

Presentation segment: approximately 39:33–40:57

From the March 1, 1842, Wentworth Letter, May emphasizes the statement that the principal nation fell near the close of the fourth century and that its remnant consisted of the Indians inhabiting “this country.” He reads that expression as referring to the United States, the country in which Joseph was then living.

May also mentions Letter VII as an important document for identifying Cumorah in New York. He says he previously published material from it without knowing its author and credits “Jonathan” with bringing its significance more fully to his attention. The transcript does not supply Jonathan’s surname at that point.

13. Across from Nauvoo: May’s Proposed Zarahemla Temple Site

Presentation segment: approximately 41:05–53:54

The final major investigation concerns land on the Iowa side of the Mississippi opposite Nauvoo.

May begins with temple enclosures, using Cedar Bank Earthworks as a comparison. He describes perimeter walls, a ditch, water along one side, and a raised platform approached by ramps rather than stairs. His general reference to Mosiah corresponds to Mosiah 11:10, which mentions walls of the temple.

He then discusses the Half-Breed Tract and land purchases in 1839. In his account, the Saints’ acquisition of Iowa property despite severe financial distress suggests that Joseph attached importance to the area. He connects this with the displacement of Saints from Missouri, naming Daviess County, Caldwell County, and Independence.

May quotes from Doctrine and Covenants 124 while discussing Joseph’s role in locating sacred buildings. For accurate scripture identification, the quotation about George, Lyman, and John Snider is Doctrine and Covenants 124:22; the following verse identifies that particular building as a boarding house. The temple-location language he subsequently quotes appears in Doctrine and Covenants 124:42–43.

His principal Iowa passage is Doctrine and Covenants 125:3, dated March 1841:

“Let them build up a city unto my name upon the land opposite the city of Nauvoo, and let the name of Zarahemla be named upon it.”

May interprets that naming as a reason to investigate ancient remains across the river. He says friends persuaded him to visit the property in 2011. Upon entering from the west, he observed an opening toward the east through which he could see the Nauvoo Temple. He also describes surrounding berms resembling Ohio earthworks, including one more than six feet high.

Electronic surveying and subsurface layers

May credits Charlie Christianson with an electronic survey in May 2011. He describes a rectangular feature and openings that he interprets as ramps. He also recounts the detection of an anomaly interpreted as calcium, followed by the discovery of deer bones immediately below the sod.

An archaeologist whose name is transcribed as “Dr. Ruden” later told him that a hill lay beneath the rectangular feature. May interpreted it as a buried mound. He reports:

Sand forming the principal mound material.
Its upper surface approximately five feet below the current ground.
A clay cap approximately one to two inches thick.
A level clay layer approximately two inches thick at a depth of 21–22 feet.
Approximately 50 soil samples around the property.
A proposed complex covering about 15 acres.

May says the electronic interpretation initially identified one layer as wood, but subsequent investigation identified clay instead. He also explains his belief that plowing dispersed material from an above-ground platform mound across the surrounding field.

Astronomy and historical documentation

May discusses work by Dr. James P. Scherz, whose surname appears in several distorted forms in the transcript. Scherz is identifiable in other published material as a surveyor and researcher associated with ancient earthwork alignments.

May quotes a suggestion that the yellow-sand anomaly might relate to setting an 18.6-year lunar calendar. He also mentions an astronomer colleague whose name is transcribed as “Dave Ware,” though the spelling is uncertain.

Alongside this investigation, May reports asking Mark Harvey to inquire with Church historians about any documented temple site at Zarahemla. The answer he reads states that discussions of a possible temple existed, but no known record showed that a specific site had been selected or dedicated.

He then quotes Edward Phillips’s recollection of Wilford Woodruff pointing toward a location across the river, approximately a mile and a half above Montrose, and saying that a city and temple would be built there under the name Zarahemla. May considers the distance consistent with the property he investigated.

He credits Dean Sessions with an aerial photograph and uses a historical river map showing islands before the Keokuk dam altered the water level. He relates that map to Joseph Smith’s account of meeting Emma and friends on an island at the mouth of a slough between Zarahemla and Nauvoo during the troubles of 1842.

14. Equinox Sunrise Observations

Presentation segment: approximately 54:01–57:46

May recounts testing Scherz’s prediction that, viewed from the proposed site’s northeast corner, the equinox sun would rise in the direction of the Nauvoo Temple. The transcript gives inconsistent March date information, although 2015 is the year stated. May says the group began photographing on the 19th because clouds and rain threatened the preferred observation period.

He describes watching the sun become visible beyond the Illinois horizon and comparing the temple tower with the nearby water tower as alignment markers. A later autumn effort placed observers both in Iowa and in the Nauvoo Temple tower. He reports an approximately three-minute difference between when the elevated Illinois observers could see the sun and when it became visible from the Iowa position.

For May, these observations reinforce the importance of the site’s eastward orientation. He closes the account by saying supporters raised the money to purchase the property and that it was secured for further work.

15. Cumorah, Parley P. Pratt, and the Promised Land

Presentation segment: approximately 57:46–1:01:06

May closes with a quotation from Hugh Nibley comparing the Book of Mormon’s Nephite culture with the earth-and-palisade structures of the Hopewell and Adena areas rather than the later monumental stone buildings of Mesoamerica. The transcript misrenders Nibley’s name, but the quotation is identifiable. May uses it to underline his emphasis on wood, earth, and comparatively modest structures.

He then discusses Parley P. Pratt’s A Voice of Warning, prompted by passages sent to him by a participant named Tammy. May emphasizes Pratt’s identification of the hill where Moroni deposited the record as Cumorah in Manchester, Ontario County, New York, North America. To May, that sequence of place names is a particularly direct geographical statement.

His final appeal brings together the Garden of Eden, Adam, Noah, Enoch, Adam-ondi-Ahman, the New Jerusalem, liberty, gathering, and divine protection. He interprets these themes as pointing toward the United States and the North American setting he has developed throughout the talk.

The related scripture passages are:

Garden of Eden: Genesis 2:8–15.
Adam and Eve offering sacrifice after leaving Eden: Moses 5:4–8.
Enoch and Zion: Moses 7:18–21.
Noah before the Flood: Moses 8:19–24.
Adam-ondi-Ahman: Doctrine and Covenants 116:1.
A land of liberty without kings and protected against other nations: 2 Nephi 10:11–14.
Gathering to the land and freedom from bondage: 2 Nephi 1:6–7.
Freedom conditioned on serving God: Ether 2:12.
New Jerusalem on the American continent: Articles of Faith 1:10.
Zion and the temple location in Independence, Missouri: Doctrine and Covenants 57:1–3.

These are reference matches for May’s closing themes, not a claim that he verbally supplied every chapter and verse. No specific New Testament passage is identifiable in the transcript.

Location Guide to the Presentation

The following guide preserves the distinction between a location May identifies clearly and one whose precise city or name is not supplied.

Site or location	City, state, or region identified	Role in the presentation
Miamisburg Mound	Miamisburg, Ohio	Opening preservation and erosion example.
Hill Cumorah	Manchester, Ontario County, New York	Central location in May’s one-Cumorah argument and Pratt quotation.
Lake Erie and Lake Ontario	Great Lakes region	Restricted-geography discussion; Ontario proposed as an eastern sea.
Great Circle and Great Octagon	Newark, Ohio	Ditch arrangement, geometry, and enclosure scale.
Indian Point/Lyman site	Ohio, near Kirtland in May’s description	Berms, ditches, steep terrain, and proposed escape route.
Kirtland Temple	Kirtland, Ohio	Landmark used to introduce Indian Point.
Liberty Earthworks	Ohio; city not stated	Dimensions and geometric construction.
Pollock Earthworks	Ohio; city not stated	Post molds, entrance, limestone approach, and stockade reconstruction.
Unnamed enclosure	West Virginia	Water-level and boat-escape interpretation.
Fort Ancient	Ohio; city not stated	Wall excavations, posts, entrance 55A, and habitation evidence.
Spruce Hill	Ohio; city not stated	Preservation purchase and burned-structure discussion.
Old Stone Fort	Manchester, Tennessee	Stone walls and wooden superstructures.
Duck River	Tennessee	Water setting associated with Old Stone Fort.
Nashville–Florida route	Tennessee toward Florida	Travel context for visiting Old Stone Fort.
Uncertain “demos” site	Ohio	Constricted entrance and defensive crossfire illustration.
Seip Earthworks	Ohio; city not stated	Comparison with familiar world monuments.
Southern Illinois hilltop forts	Between the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers	Proposed comparison with Lachoneus’s gathering.
Possible “War Bluff” example	Southern Illinois; name uncertain	Stone barrier and narrow rear approach.
Zelph Mound	Illinois; city not stated	Joseph Smith account and reported late-period dating.
Ancient Manti identification	Huntsville, Randolph County, Missouri	Kirtland Camp journal account.
Cedar Bank Earthworks	Ohio; city not stated	Temple enclosure and platform comparison.
Proposed Zarahemla site	Iowa, opposite Nauvoo and near Montrose	May’s field investigation and proposed temple complex.
Nauvoo Temple	Nauvoo, Illinois	Historical discussion, sightline, and sunrise observations.
Montrose	Iowa	Distance marker in Edward Phillips’s recollection.
Half-Breed Tract	Iowa	Land-purchase background.
Big Slough and former river islands	Mississippi River between Iowa and Illinois	Joseph and Emma’s 1842 meeting context.
Keokuk dam	Mississippi River	Explanation for submerged islands on the historical map.
Daviess County, Caldwell County, Independence	Missouri	Background to the Saints’ displacement and financial hardship.
Adam-ondi-Ahman	Missouri	Altar discussion and promised-land conclusion.
Rocky Mountains	Western North America	Extent of Onandagus’s renown in the account May quotes.
Giza, Stonehenge, Rome, Statue of Liberty	Egypt, England, Italy, New York	Visual size comparisons only.

All presentation locations and their stated roles above come from the presentation transcript; unspecified cities have deliberately not been added.

People and Written Sources May Uses

May’s quoted authorities, research references, historical witnesses, and collaborators should also be kept distinct:

Robert Riordan: archaeological work on earthworks, wooden structures, and burning.
Richard Morgan: the 1946 Fort Ancient excavation May discusses.
Robert Connolly and Patricia Essenpreis: Fort Ancient wall and habitation investigations; their names are clarified by external documentation.
Brian Stubbs: the quotation about the evidentiary value of language relationships.
Charles Mann: the passage on Algonquian language ancestry and glottochronology.
Ryan Fischer: the dictionary comparison involving “RIP.”
Joseph Smith: missionary history, correspondence, geographical statements, and revelations.
Samuel D. Tyler: the September 25, 1838, Kirtland Camp journal entry.
Edward Phillips and Wilford Woodruff: the recollection concerning a city and temple across the river.
Parley P. Pratt: A Voice of Warning and its explicit New York Cumorah location.
Hugh Nibley: the closing comparison involving Hopewell and Adena earth-and-palisade construction. (Source identifying the quotation.)

May also mentions Jack Blosser and Bradley Lepper in recounting interpretive disagreements; Charlie Christianson, Dr. James P. Scherz, Mark Harvey, and Dean Sessions in connection with the Iowa investigation; and Rod, Bruce Porter, Jonathan, Tammy, and a companion named Dave in personal or research anecdotes. Several surnames and one archaeologist’s name—transcribed as “Dr. Ruden”—remain uncertain in the attachment.

The written sources named include History of the Church, Times and Seasons, the Wentworth Letter, Letter VII, Doctrines of Salvation, Joseph Smith Papers material, Edward Phillips’s biographical sketches, archaeological reports, and A Voice of Warning. Where May does not give a complete title, author, edition, or page reference, the transcript does not support manufacturing one.

Taken together, the presentation moves from surviving physical features to scriptural descriptions, then to historical testimony and a specific modern investigation. May’s “quick start” is therefore not simply a declaration that Cumorah belongs in New York. It is his invitation to read the war chapters of Alma with the Midwest’s ditches, berms, gateways, timber traces, waterways, and expansive enclosures in view—and to connect that landscape with the early Latter-day Saint accounts he believes explain it.

Used with Permission. Wayne May gave me express permission to publish his content freely to help share his message of Book of Mormon Geography.