The BoM says of itself it is a true account of true events of people who lived in actual places and received through divine revelation by Smith

The BoM records locations, people and events in an account of what can only be recognized as what must have been the single largest, most powerful and most technologically advanced civilization in approximately 5,000 years of Mesoamerican history. NONE of these claims involve "faith" in any way. Every single claim regarding the existence of TRUE events (such as wars of annihilation, construction of great cities, etc.), real places (such as cities and rivers) and actual people (kings, priests, prophets, warriors, robbers, etc) is a HISTORICAL claim and is therefore automatically subject to the standards of normal HISTORICAL inquiry. These supposed REAL people who supposedly lived in ACTUAL places and allegedly recorded true events made religious claims that certainly require faith. However, unless this civilization and its inhabitants actually, really and truly existed, there is no reason to take their claims of divine revelations seriously. Where's the proof of entire civilizations that supposedly lasted 2,000 years such as the so-called "Nephites" civilizations that would without a doubt leave vast amounts of archaeological evidence behind? They would also invariably leave lots of other evidence behind as well as (linguistic, documentary, biological, cultural/anthropological , etc) If you are to believe the BoM, you must somehow bring yourself to believe that this is not true of the "Nephites" - that they alone can simply vanish without a single trace of their existence in history. This is not a matter of "faith" to begin with. The existence of civilizations is rightly a HISTORICAL matter, not a religious matter. The error of the so-called prophet Joseph Smith occurred when he attempted to tie his claims to the real world by basing his new religion on HISTORICAL claims. The simple fact remains that there exists no evidence in the real world that any of the historical claims in the BoM are actually true. So I ask, if Mormonism is to be taken seriously, show the HISTORICAL evidence of it's truthfulness? The fallacy here is known among reshtoriticians, and logicians as a "categorical error. Otherwise known as "comparing apples and oranges."