John Sorenson notes that in the thirty-seventh year into the era of the reign of the judges (about 60 B.C.), 5,400 men, plus women and children, "departed out of the land of Zarahemla into the land which was northward" (Alma 63:4). In the next year many more departed. Perhaps others departed from Lamanite country at the same time. More than curiosity must have impelled such numbers. What was it? Probably as much push as pull was exerted. We have seen earlier that the area in the land of Zarahemla that could boast good crop conditions was limited. We have also seen the population increasing over time. When too many bodies occupy a resource area, temporary accommodation may take place with increase in stress (as in the conflict with the king-men), but eventually some of the surplus people are likely to relocate. A reading of Alma 62:39-41 (note especially the "famines") suggests that crowding of the resource base had been one cause of the war just past, as much as it had been a result. In any case, the land northward lay before them with the prospect that it could accommodate some of the crowded southerners. They had already got into the pattern of wholesale resettlement under wartime conditions. But it is most unlikely that mere individuals would have gone off to northern colonies. Only "corporate," organized units would have the resources to undertake such an ambitious task. The groups likely would have to be strong in a military sense to take control of any areas of much value for it is a general ecological rule that all the better settlement areas would long since have been occupied. Lineage units are likely to have been the ones to carry off a successful move. As a result, the Nephite colonies may have been quite concentrated geographically (but note Helaman 3:8). . . .
All this business of seeking new lands and new power sounds very Mesoamerican. Those going overland (undoubtedly the majority would mainly have moved via the narrow pass into just the zones Morianton had had his eye on, the eastern lowlands in the land northward near the narrow neck. Others took a sea route, settling along the west sea in the area in the land northward. By neither route would the migrants have traveled farther than necessary. We have no reason to think that distances of more than a couple of hundred miles were involved (but see Helaman 3:4). . . .
Settlements of the first century B.C. have been found scattered along the coast of the states of Guerrero and Oaxaca [Mexico], a few hundred miles north of the isthmus. It is reasonable that some Nephite colonization and subsequent trade (see Helaman 3:10) was directed there, particularly since good timber is rare on that hot, dry strip. Later on, at least this area was definitely colonized by people from southern Mesoamerica. The colonists conceivably could have gone a considerable distance north, even to the state of Nayarit over 600 miles away, but if that was the case, they probably lost contact with their homeland, since even within the land southward over much shorter distances communication was often tenuous. (Note the ineffective, slow messages even among the top leaders in Alma 59; compare Mosiah 7:1.) [John L. Sorenson, An Ancient American Setting for the Book of Mormon, pp. 265-266,268]