Geographical: The Nephites come “out of the land Desolation.” This land lies to the north of the narrow passage, and in times up to and including 3 Nephi, was not a part of Nephite holdings. It appears that the Nephites expanded northward in the three hundred years after Christ’s visit. We will see that a larger number of actions will occur in this northward land as we close out the events of the Book of Mormon.
The land Desolation is named for the remains of a previous people in that area:
Alma 22:29-30
29 … even until they came to the land which they called Bountiful.
30 And it bordered upon the land which they called Desolation, it being so far northward that it came into the land which had been peopled and been destroyed, of whose bones we have spoken, which was discovered by the people of Zarahemla, it being the place of their first landing.
Desolation was the original homeland of the Zarahemlaites/Mulekites. It was also the homeland of the Jaredites, and in the correlation we are using, the area of Mesoamerica associated with the Olmec. More will be discussed about the Olmec in the Book of Ether. The important point for our current understanding is that the Nephites have moved into ancestral Jaredite lands, and that the endgame of Nephite civilization will take place in the same general geographic area as the end of the Jaredites. This is an irony that is not lost on Mormon.
Chronological: The one hundred and sixty third year would be 353 A.D.