One theory that I find particularly interesting is the Malay model, because it seems to fit the Book of Mormon story better than anyplace in the Americas, if you farm the data effectively. Here's a series of short articles about it from Wheat and Tares:
https://wheatandtares.org/2011/10/04/th ... rt-1-of-4/
https://wheatandtares.org/2011/10/11/th ... rt-2-of-4/
https://wheatandtares.org/2011/10/18/th ... rt-3-of-4/
https://wheatandtares.org/2011/10/25/th ... rt-4-of-4/
Some of the parallels include:
They even had elephants. The explanation for the Gold Plates ending up in America is that Moroni sailed here with them with a stop-over in... are you ready for this?... Comoros, where he was so well received that a city was named after him....documented use of writing on metal plates,wheeled vehicles, a millennialist tradition among indigenous people, suitable flora and fauna, a town called “Lammuella,” a modern Burmese battleground known as “Kawmoora,” and—of course—the persistent legend of a prophetic brother who left his rebellious kin, taking with him a golden book containing the words of Y’wa, promising that the words from this book would someday be restored.
The problems, of course, is that modern prophets from Joseph Smith to Gordon B. Hinkley have insisted that the BoM is about the United States of Merkuh, and God repeatedly reminds us in the D&C that the American Indians are Lamanites.
Any thoughts?