Featured Article: Barley in the Book of Mormon by George Potter

Featured article: "Barley in the Book of Mormon" by George Potter

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Although barley is mentioned four times in the Book of Mormon, no evidence of barley cultivation has been found in the ruins of Mesoamerica. Nor will there be, for barley is a temperate-climate grain native only to North and South America. However, place barley in the hands of Nephite farmers in the Andes of ancient Peru, and the Book of Mormon is in complete harmony with historical fact.

Barley and quinoa growing in CuzcoValley.

All four references to barley in the Book of Mormon are in association with Zarahemla or the land of Nephi (Mosiah 7:22, Mosiah 9:9, Alma 11:7, Alma 11:15). In my book, Nephi in the Promised Land, I argue that the best candidate for Zarahemla is Pukara, in the Puno department of Peru on theAltiplano [high plain where Lake Titicaca is located]. As the best candidate for the land of Nephi, I claim that the oral history and archaeological record of the CuzcoValley high in the Andes matches best the Book of Mormon description of the land named after the book's first author.

The Altiplano and CuzcoValley are the lands of the Incas and their ancestors. An ancient agricultural technique employed by the Incas was called a "qocha." According to archaeologist Amelia Carolina Sparavigna:

A monumental qocha of the Inca period is in the outskirts of Cuzco. Near the Rodadero, a rocky hill with numerous stairwells and benches carved into the stone, a spring is providing water to the Qocha Chincanas, a round artificial pond for ceremonial purposes.... An ancient agricultural technique is based on the use of qochas. Linked together by a network of canals, the qochas form a system of water and soil management, alternately used for crops or pasture. These structures can be found in some areas of the Andean highlands of Peru and Bolivia, near the TitcacaLake [Altiplano] at an average altitude of 4,000 meters [roughly 12,500 feet]. They are very numerous and dense in the department of Puno (Peru) where they were discovered and documented.

The structure [qocha] gives potatoes the first year, quinoa, oats or barley the second year and then it rests for a year as a fallow pasture. [Amelia Carolina Sparavigna, "Qochas on Andean Highlands," Achaeogoate Archeologia Sperimentale, ... [emphasis added]

Nephi taught his people farming techniques that allowed them to prosper exceedingly by reaping abundant yields (2 Nephi 5:11). Barley, crop rotations, and qochas appear to have been part of the reason why the Nephites prospered when they were righteous.