While the archaeological evidence metallurgy in Preclassical
Mesoamerica, remains scant, there is linguistic evidence supporting Preclassical
knowledge of metals and metalworking. As Brant Gardner wrote:
Linguistic data
provide hope that archaeology might yet make a discovery that would alter our
understanding of metallurgy dating in Mesoamerican. The word for metal has been
reconstructed in the Mixe-Zoquaean vocabulary (*ting-kuy). This is the language group that would have been spoken
during Jaredite times. It is therefore certain that there was metal, else there
would be no reason to have the word. However, it could have referred to iron
ore and not to smelted metal. Confirmation of early metal-working is still
absent. (Brant A. Gardner, Traditions of
the Fathers: The Book of Mormon as History [Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford
Books, 2015], 184)
Gardner provides the following for his source of the linguistic data:
Søren Wichmann, The Relationship among the Mixe-Zoquean
Language of Mexico, 564. (Wichmann uses a symbol for the “ng” cluster).
Fortunately, Søren Wichmann has made his book available online:
Søren Wichmann, The
Relationship among the Mixe-Zoquean Languages of Mexico (Salt Lake
City: University of Utah Press, 1995)
Here is the relevant excerpt from p. 564 as referenced by Gardner:
