Amlici could not have ordered military action without a significant-sized community that could provide not only soldiers but also food and weapons to supply them. Following Sorenson’s suggestion, rather than building a city from scratch, the Amlicites would have moved into an existing, sympathetic community. In the proposed setting, both the Amlicites’ physical separation and its connections to Maya lands (“Lamanite” at this point in Book of Mormon history) would already have been hospitable to Mesoamerican culture, including kingship, and conspicuous display of wealth. Furthermore, anthropological evidence shows that warfare was on the rise in this area. Anthropologists Alfredo López Austín and Leonardo López Luján describe the situation:
About 400 B.C. transcendental changes took place that marked the beginning of the Late Preclassic. One of the distinctive characteristics of this epoch, which ended by A.D. 250, was an atmosphere of violence and competition between the principal power centers, which is illustrated by the massive burials of sacrificed victims in places such as Cuello and Chalchuapa. Some scholars propose that the continuous skirmishes and open warfare of the period are among the causes of the florescence and collapse of Preclassic capitals such as El Mirador and also served to catalyze the emergence of state societies.
Some of the fighting was territorial and some was religious. Thus, the Amlicites fit well into Mesoamerican patterns of the time.