Previous to 2018, there was this argument against the authenticity of the Book of Mormon: there is no corroborating archeological evidence. The argument goes, if there was such a large civilization that spanned 1000 years somewhere in the Americas, why did no known civilization's timeline line up and why didn't objects, cities, etc. from the book appear somewhere in the archeological record?

These arguments were common among Western researchers and skeptics of the Book of Mormon.

In recent years, a new eye from the Western world turned to Central America in the form of lidar. From a plane, drone, or helicopter, lidar can reveal archeological structure behind ultra-dense foliage (forests), behind a shallow level of earth, and through water.

Here are some things reported by BBC and National Geographic, among other sources, near Guatemala.

(Book of Mormon descriptions and Central America have often been linked, and one reason is the description of a "narrow neck of land" that a person could journey across in a day.)

(Keep in mind a quote from these reports: "Francisco Estrada-Belli, a Tulane University archaeologist, told National Geographic. 'We'll need 100 years to go through all [the data] and really understand what we're seeing.'" It is conceivable that such discovery is not confined to Guatemala and that things we still don't see will be discovered from already existing data.)

• The estimated Mayan population is probably not the consensus ~5 million (too small to match claims in the Book of Mormon), but could easily be 10 to 15 million.
• Book of Mormon claims that the main story occurs with meaningful population from 600 B.C. to 450 A.D. was thought incompatible with the Mayan civilization. The consensus was they lived from 400 to 900 A.D. Lidar reveals there is likely population in the area for nearly 3000 years, including the heavy population of the Mayans between 500 B.C. and 500 A.D. and the peak at around 400 or 500 A.D., which is the century in which the Book of Mormon claims the population was desolated by a never-ending war and a degradation of society. (Previous understanding of Mayans included human sacrifice, and this level of degradation is mentioned at the end of the Book of Mormon.)
• Found: "incredible defensive structures" that included walls, fortresses, and moots, including hundreds of kilometers of fortification walls that were never found even with archeologists mapping walls in the same area. (A large part of the Book of Mormon follows the story of the nation at war with its sister nation, and an influential military leader who fortifies every city with large walls.) (The Book of Mormon ends with a description of a culture that revolved around war, in which all non-war people and all Christians are killed, and the last survivor, Moroni--son of Mormon--runs from the death culture to bury the metal Book of Mormon somewhere it won't be found and destroyed. From the lidar researchers: "Among the most surprising findings was the ubiquity of defensive walls, ramparts, terraces, and fortresses. 'Warfare wasn’t only happening toward the end of the civilization,' said Garrison. 'It was large-scale and systematic, and it endured over many years.'")
• Found: more pyramids (see photo below). The Book of Mormon discusses temples and towers to observe incoming enemies that have similarities.
• Found: complex system of causeways (e.g. raised highways) linking all Mayan cities. The Book of Mormon discusses these and regular interstate commerce (which was previously thought incongruent with pre-Columbian American history).
• Areas that were thought to be uninhabitable in the swamps or coast line now show cities and buildings. (The Book of Mormon details times, such as during the death of Christ in the Middle East, where the face of the land was changed by earthquakes and storms. Cities were burned having caught fire (by lightning?); volcanoes destroying cities; cities were drowned, permanently under water; mountains appeared where cities used to be. In some cases, the Book of Mormon claims cities were rebuilt between the death of Christ and 400 A.D.)
• Mysterious "abandonment" of homes and "disappearance" of the Mayans, despite no evidence of natural catastrophe around 500 A.D. Some theories claim they mismanaged their resources and died, despite evidence showing that unlikely, as they are meticulous organizers and preservers. (Book of Mormon claims large amount of the people became war-obsessed and killed everyone, including themselves, over time.)

Reminder, modern historians and researchers do not believe and have no evidence that any of these findings that appear in the Book of Mormon and in Guatemala lidar data (e.g. elevated highways, fortified walls, population and timeframe) were known to anyone during the time of Joseph Smith (mid-1800s) and there is no explanation how an uneducated, teenage boy from rural New York would know to copy these ideas. From the lidar researchers: "After decades of combing through the forests, no archaeologists had stumbled across these sites."

In the last 4 years, lidar has uncovered other civilization around the Gulf of Mexico despite many areas not yet being scanned.

• 2020 report on the largest Mayan structure ever discovered, that might be a place of worship: link
• Pre-Columbian settlement discovered off west coast of Florida: link
• A city at least as big as Manhattan in Michoacan, Mexico, with 40,000 structures having been buried by lava: link
• Ancient, massive city on the eastern coast of Honduras and Nicaragua, which is now home to previously-thought extinct animal and plant species: link
• Enough "lost cities" in eastern Honduras; evidence points to a "lost civilization": link

Screenshot of forest in Guatemala seen by eye and seen with lidar, from BBC

Screenshot of forest in Guatemala seen by eye and seen with lidar, from National Geographic