The Gadiantons’ powerful military machine is threatening to overrun all of the Nephite lands. This passage reinforces the reading of the Gadiantons as a new city. Being able to field and maintain a large and well-organized (perhaps almost professional) army virtually dictates the existence of a Gadianton polity. The Late Preclassic (300 B.C. to A.D. 250) saw an increasing amount of warfare and the development of some of the earliest defensive site-selections as well as defensive walls. The rise of warfare is hypothesized as contributing to a mini-collapse of Maya civilization at the end of the Late Preclassic.