It has been suggested that this might have been the origin of the concept of burying the hatchet as a symbol of peace. It was not. The symbolism is dramatically different. In the burying of the hatchet, the two sides symbolically buried a weapon. The Anti-Nephi-Lehies buried all of their weapons, with no acquiescence from their enemy that there would be peace. Burying the hatchet was a bilateral action. The Anti-Nephi-Lehies enacted a unilateral action that reinforced their covenant with God, not an agreement with an enemy.
This is also an action that resonates with Mesoamerican cultures. There was a widespread practice of burying symbolic artifacts in the earth. They were done both to commemorate beginnings and endings. In this case, the Anti-Nephi-Lehies might have seen this burial as either a beginning of a covenant, or the ending of the practice that they had worked so hard to repent of.