History: The archaeological record for Mesoamerica for the Early Classic agrees that there were increasing numbers of people in the Maya world and an increasing number of new cities. Archaeologist John Henderson notes:
Several regions experienced intensified population growth. Well-developed hierarchies of communities—from tiny hamlets and villages with no indications of special political functions to large cities with all the trappings of centralized power—appeared. Many cities enjoyed a boom in building, especially in civic architecture. Some cities sought and acquired power beyond their immediate hinterlands, and regional states emerged. Marriage, alliance, and warfare variously characterized relationships among autonomous states. Relationships with distant societies also intensified, as the great central Mexican city of Teotihuacan established a long-term presence in the Maya world, especially at Kaminaljuyú in the highlands.
Future Mesoamerican populations will be still larger; but Mormon was seeing the densest concentration known in any record available to him.