" American Indian Ancestry Traced Back To Six Women"

[helix]

Ahh, I found part of the answer I was looking for. From today's Deseret News.

Also, a press release from the foundation notes, "The study also confirms the presence of genetic subgroups of more rare, less known and geographically limited genetic groups who arrived later." Those groups are not detailed in the paper.

[Inipi]

Ahh, I found part of the answer I was looking for. From today's Deseret News.

The way the Book of Mormon describes it though, it sounds like they were numbered in the millions. That's not a small or rare population.

[katherine the great]

Actually, since the 1950's or 60's, Hugh Nibley's theory was that the Jaredites were Asian...based on linguistic and cultural evidences.

The Jaredites were from the near east--the Babylon area. Yes, that is technically in Asia, but most definitely nowhere near Northeast Asia. The text is conclusive on that point. It really doesn't matter though because these markers put the age of the first Americans (with present day descendants) at 10--20 thousand years bp. The Jaredites were thousands of years later.

[fattim85]

The Jaredites were from the near east--the Babylon area. Yes, that is technically in Asia, but most definitely nowhere near Northeast Asia. The text is conclusive on that point. It really doesn't matter though because these markers put the age of the first Americans (with present day descendants) at 10--20 thousand years bp. The Jaredites were thousands of years later.

Thanks for the correction; I couldn't remember what the current thinking was.

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

The way the Book of Mormon describes it though, it sounds like they were numbered in the millions. That's not a small or rare population.

So when you say "it makes it sound like" That really means that you have not read the actuall text of the BoM and you do not understand how ancient documents are written. in other words numbers are exagerated. Define small? Define rare?

[LifeOnaPlate]

I'm not sure, but I think John McCain dated one of those women....

yes!

[Scott Lloyd]

I'm hoping the mods close Corky Wallace's extraneous thread, so I'll respond to his statement here. He was responding to a post from Will Schryver, who in turn had responded to a post from Corky questioning the plausibility that all or virtually all of today's Native Americans would have Book of Mormon ancestry.

I'm quite familiar with population genetics. My statement has to do with the likelihood that a small number of literal Lehites were able to spread their DNA to all corners and all groups - with the requirement of having that DNA spread within all of the population of each of those groups - of not just the Americas but the Pacific from Easter Island to Hawai'i to New Zealand, ALL within the time period of the BOM.

You are apparently less familiar with the geometric progression of descendants -- or you haven't thought it through. It takes very few individuals to intermarry within a population with the result that, generations later, all or virtually all descendants in that population trace their ancestry to those individuals. In short, given the likelihood of migration within the Americas, I have no trouble at all conceiving logically that any Native American I encounter today is descended from Father Lehi.

Here's an example. Even though I have Mormon pioneer ancestry, I have no ancestors who lived in Nauvoo and came west with Brigham Young. But my wife does. The consequence of that is that my children and all of my posterity from here on out will have ancestors who were among the Saints in Nauvoo. Moreover, any member of my posterity who marries will ensure that the spouse's posterity will also have ancestors who were Mormons in Nauvoo. The Nauvoo Mormon descendancy thus grows geometrically with each passing generation. And given the mobility in our society, it would not be long before such descendancy covered every corner of the North American continent and indeed spread abroad.

[jwhitlock]

Deleted - wrong thread.

[Corky Wallace]

I'm hoping the mods close Corky Wallace's extraneous thread, so I'll respond to his statement here. He was responding to a post from Will Schryver, who in turn had responded to a post from Corky questioning the plausibility that all or virtually all of today's Native Americans would have Book of Mormon ancestry.

You are apparently less familiar with the geometric progression of descendants -- or you haven't thought it through. It takes very few individuals to intermarry within a population with the result that, generations later, all or virtually all descendants in that population trace their ancestry to those individuals. In short, given the likelihood of migration within the Americas, I have no trouble at all conceiving logically that any Native American I encounter today is descended from Father Lehi.

Here's an example. Even though I have Mormon pioneer ancestry, I have no ancestors who lived in Nauvoo and came west with Brigham Young. But my wife does. The consequence of that is that my children and all of my posterity from here on out will have ancestors who were among the Saints in Nauvoo. Moreover, any member of my posterity who marries will ensure that the spouse's posterity will also have ancestors who were Mormons in Nauvoo. The Nauvoo Mormon descendancy thus grows geometrically with each passing generation.

Yes, I'm aware of the geometric progression models. My point has to do with the likelihood of this kind of progression of Lehite DNA is every group already dispersed in the Americas and Polynesia, in the time period of question, considering that many, perhaps most of these populations were already at or near their present locations long before Lehi's group came to the Americas.

For example, Tierra Del Fuego was populated very long ago, 4000+ years. The Innuit of northern Canada & Greenland are relatively recent emigres, from Asia. There are many, many groups in between, some extraordinarily isolated - eg, within the Amazon basin - for thousands of years.

So, the DNA would need to be inserted into the collective DNA of the many distinct groups that would have already existed, over a vast geographical area, "in time" for the geometric progression you noted to have reached all the members of each group.

The other potential model involves intermarrying of groups & passing DNA that way, but I don't believe the time periods in question would facilitate the sort of comprehensive DNA dispersion over this wide of geographical area, within the time period in question, to all the already dispersed groups.

I know of a Population Geneticist at my work. I may query him on this point.

[buraianto]

You and the article are talking about two different things. The article is talking about the finding that the American Indians descend from six and only six ancestral mothers; there are originally only those six mothers, from whom the entire population descended.

The article explicitly says this is not the case:

The finding does not mean that only these six women gave rise to the migrants who crossed into North America from Asia in the initial populating of the continent, said study co-author Ugo Perego.

[Scott Lloyd]

Yes, I'm aware of the geometric progression models. My point has to do with the likelihood of this kind of progression of Lehite DNA is every group already dispersed in the Americas and Polynesia, in the time period of question, considering that many, perhaps most of these populations were already at or near their present locations long before Lehi's group came to the Americas.

For example, Tierra Del Fuego was populated very long ago, 4000+ years. The Innuit of northern Canada & Greenland are relatively recent emigres, from Asia. There are many, many groups in between, some extraordinarily isolated - eg, within the Amazon basin - for thousands of years.

So, the DNA would need to be inserted into the collective DNA of the many distinct groups that would have already existed, over a vast geographical area, "in time" for the geometric progression you noted to have reached all the members of each group.

The other potential model involves intermarrying of groups & passing DNA that way, but I don't believe the time periods in question would facilitate the sort of comprehensive DNA dispersion over this wide of geographical area, within the time period in question, to all the already dispersed groups.

I know of a Population Geneticist at my work. I may query him on this point.

Meanwhile, check out this news release from Yale University:

http://www.yale.edu/opa/newsr/04-09-29-02.all.html

It's about a study wherein a Yale mathematician showed that the most recent person who was the direct ancestor of all humans currently alive may have lived just a few thousand years ago.

His model estimated that the most recent common ancestor of mankind lived as recently as about 3,000 years ago, and the identical ancestors point was as recent as several thousand years ago. The identical ancestors point is the point at which each person then alive was an ancestor to all or ancestor to none of the people alive today.

Interestingly, the author of the study said that within 2,000 years it is likely that everyone on earth will be descended from most of us.

My application to the argument at hand is this: If the identical ancestors point for all mankind is so recent, it would take relatively few generations for Lehi's descendants to cover the Americas.

[cinepro]

Meanwhile, check out this news release from Yale University:

http://www.yale.edu/opa/newsr/04-09-29-02.all.html

It's about a study wherein a Yale mathematician showed that the most recent person who was the direct ancestor of all humans currently alive may have lived just a few thousand years ago.

His model estimated that the most recent common ancestor of mankind lived as recently as about 3,000 years ago, and the identical ancestors point was as recent as several thousand years ago. The identical ancestors point is the point at which each person then alive was an ancestor to all or ancestor to none of the people alive today.

Interestingly, the author of the study said that within 2,000 years it is likely that everyone on earth will be descended from most of us.

My application to the argument at hand is this: If the identical ancestors point for all mankind is so recent, it would take relatively few generations for Lehi's descendants to cover the Americas.

This also has interesting implications for the meaning of the Priesthood ban. The method for determining the scope of the ban was so broad, that it is entirely possible that every member (or at least a huge portion) of the Church in the 19th and 20th centuries had black ancestors somewhere along the line. If the technology had existed at that time to determine whether or not that was the case, I wonder what that could have meant for the implementation of the ban?

[Scott Lloyd]

This also has interesting implications for the meaning of the Priesthood ban. The method for determining the scope of the ban was so broad, that it is entirely possible that every member (or at least a huge portion) of the Church in the 19th and 20th centuries had black ancestors somewhere along the line. If the technology had existed at that time to determine whether or not that was the case, I wonder what that could have meant for the implementation of the ban?

Interesting question, but irrelevant to the thread topic. Please don't derail.

[Corky Wallace]

Population genetics is very interesting, to say the least.

I might be missing something, but how could all people have a common ancestor from 3000 years ago when some groups have been isolated for long periods, if not all of the 3000 years (or more)? It may be difficult to establish authoritatively, but there are groups - such as the socalled "stone age" group found in the Phillipines about 25 years ago - that have been quite isolated until very recently.

Maybe the author is not intending this position to be comprehensive(?), but mostly an exercise in geometric modelling withing the largest population groups.

Another interesting genetic population area of study has been the "out of Africa" modeling, where the degree of genetic diversity of various populations suggests their "place" of human expansion out of Africa. Of current human populations, Africans have the greatest genetic diversity, while American Indians have the least, with various Asian & European populations in between having diversity levels in between. (These findings do not invalidate BOM claims, but they are interesting. Now if we're talking about Eden & Missouri... I'm jesting. I don't know LDS theology on this point. )

[katherine the great]

Population genetics is very interesting, to say the least.

I might be missing something, but how could all people have a common ancestor from 3000 years ago when some groups have been isolated for long periods, if not all of the 3000 years (or more)? It may be difficult to establish authoritatively, but there are groups - such as the socalled "stone age" group found in the Phillipines about 25 years ago - that have been quite isolated until very recently.

No kidding. I just laugh when I read mathematicians models that supposedly explain population genetics. They don't account for isolation, and it's awfully hard to intermarry with people you don't even know about.

[Scott Lloyd]

Population genetics is very interesting, to say the least.

I might be missing something, but how could all people have a common ancestor from 3000 years ago when some groups have been isolated for long periods, if not all of the 3000 years (or more)? It may be difficult to establish authoritatively, but there are groups - such as the socalled "stone age" group found in the Phillipines about 25 years ago - that have been quite isolated until very recently.

Maybe the author is not intending this position to be comprehensive(?), but mostly an exercise in geometric modelling withing the largest population groups.

That point is addressed in the text of the news release. The author of the study earlier used an intentionally simplified model that ignored such complexities as geography and migration. In the earlier model, the most recent common ancestor would have been even later, less than 1,000 years ago, and the identical ancestors point would have been less than 2,000 years ago.

In his later model, the author incorporated such factors as socially driven mating, physical barriers of geography and migration, and recorded historical events. I quote from the news release:

Although such complexities make pure mathematical analysis difficult, it was possible to integrate them into an elaborate computer simulation model. The computer repeatedly simulated history under varying assumptions, tracking the lives, movements, and reproduction of all people who lived within the last 20,000 years.

In case you still have questions, I note that the Web page includes a link to the article itself that appeared in the journal Nature. Presumably, that includes a more detailed description of the study, its methodology, assumptions and so forth.

[Scott Lloyd]

No kidding. I just laugh when I read mathematicians models that supposedly explain population genetics. They don't account for isolation, and it's awfully hard to intermarry with people you don't even know about.

Be that as it may, it does not refute the belief that all or virtually all AmerInds are descended from Lehi. Which is the point of this discussion. To do that, you would have to prove that there are native groups within the Americas that have remained isolated -- and thus beyond the reach of population intermingling -- for the last 2,600 years.

[William Schryver]

Be that as it may, it does not refute the belief that all or virtually all AmerInds are descended from Lehi. Which is the point of this discussion. To do that, you would have to prove that there are native groups within the Americas that have remained isolated -- and thus beyond the reach of population intermingling -- for the last 2,600 years.

Exactly. And when you factor in the understanding that "Lamanite" was a purely political designation (anyone not a Nephite is a "Lamanite") then you can start to make better sense of why many of us argue that it is entirely pointless to use DNA analysis to speak to any Book of Mormon-related topic.

[Scott Lloyd]

Exactly. And when you factor in the understanding that "Lamanite" was a purely political designation (anyone not a Nephite is a "Lamanite") then you can start to make better sense of why many of us argue that it is entirely pointless to use DNA analysis to speak to any Book of Mormon-related topic.

In the final analysis, what we are talking about is not so much genetics as covenantal lineage. If a person has even as few as one member of Lehi's posterity in his ancestry, the covenantal lineage is present, regardless of the person's genetic makeup.

[Sethbag]

From the statistical analysis I have seen concerning ancestral distributions, everyone now living on earth probably has one common ancestor if you go back as little as 2000-5000 years.

I believe this is a misunderstanding. My understanding of that conclusion is that it is the prediction of a mathematical and statistical model, not actual DNA tracing of real people. And I'm not sure that the model was one capable of producing an accurate prediction of real human interrelatedness, given the separation of populations on different continents and islands. For example, did that one guy 2000-5000 years ago have descendants that made it down to Australia in ancient times and passed his genes into the Aboriginal population? Or are we including modern genetic mixing between Europeans and these peoples in relatively modern times? I add this in because today it might be more plausible, considering how so many people from so many countries have been able to visit practically everywhere on Earth in the last 100-200 years. But I wonder how true this would have been, say, 500 years ago? Or a thousand?

If you go back as little as 7000 years, it is probable that everyone living at that time (whose descendant lines haven't completely died out) is probably an ancestor of everyone now living on earth.

Would this have been true just a few hundred years ago? You know, before the age of relatively easy travel that has lead to such mixing of peoples all over the world?

[Scott Lloyd]

I believe this is a misunderstanding. My understanding of that conclusion is that it is the prediction of a mathematical and statistical model, not actual DNA tracing of real people. And I'm not sure that the model was one capable of producing an accurate prediction of real human interrelatedness, given the separation of populations on different continents and islands. For example, did that one guy 2000-5000 years ago have descendants that made it down to Australia in ancient times and passed his genes into the Aboriginal population? Or are we including modern genetic mixing between Europeans and these peoples in relatively modern times? I add this in because today it might be more plausible, considering how so many people from so many countries have been able to visit practically everywhere on Earth in the last 100-200 years. But I wonder how true this would have been, say, 500 years ago? Or a thousand?

I refer you to my posts linking to the news release about the Yale University study of a few years ago. Evidently you haven't read them yet.

[jwhitlock]

No kidding. I just laugh when I read mathematicians models that supposedly explain population genetics. They don't account for isolation, and it's awfully hard to intermarry with people you don't even know about.

Actually, a number of the studies I have seen have taken "isolation" into account.

[jwhitlock]

I believe this is a misunderstanding. My understanding of that conclusion is that it is the prediction of a mathematical and statistical model, not actual DNA tracing of real people. And I'm not sure that the model was one capable of producing an accurate prediction of real human interrelatedness, given the separation of populations on different continents and islands. For example, did that one guy 2000-5000 years ago have descendants that made it down to Australia in ancient times and passed his genes into the Aboriginal population? Or are we including modern genetic mixing between Europeans and these peoples in relatively modern times? I add this in because today it might be more plausible, considering how so many people from so many countries have been able to visit practically everywhere on Earth in the last 100-200 years. But I wonder how true this would have been, say, 500 years ago? Or a thousand?

It is, as I indicated, a statistical model and not a DNA tracing. Both methods have their pros and cons, but I suggest that they both need to be looked at together when any research on populations is done. Doing that will give a better overall picture than either method on its own.

Would this have been true just a few hundred years ago? You know, before the age of relatively easy travel that has lead to such mixing of peoples all over the world?

IIRC, they had taken into account isolation issues, travel and migration issues, among other things. Even with very, very conservative estimates it was interesting to see how population ancestries can become mixed over a surprisingly short period of time (according to the models). By short, we're still talking thousand year periods of measurement.

Travel and migration has always been occurring and I think that most people are surprised at the amount of broad intermixing that has occurred, even 4-6 thousand years ago. It is evident, for instance that the Chinese were present in North and South American 100 years before Columbus came. It also appears that various migrations of people across both oceans has been going on sporadically for thousands of years.

I suggest that you find and take a look at some of the studies available that have been referenced. They are, if nothing else, very interesting.

[cinepro]

Exactly. And when you factor in the understanding that "Lamanite" was a purely political designation (anyone not a Nephite is a "Lamanite") then you can start to make better sense of why many of us argue that it is entirely pointless to use DNA analysis to speak to any Book of Mormon-related topic.

Wow. So, statistically speaking, we're probably all Lamanites? Sweet.

Maybe Church art depicts Lamanites and Nephites as bearded white men on horses not because they were bearded white men back then, but instead the artist is trying to tell all of us bearded white men today that we are Lamanites.

[cdowis]

The article is talking about the finding that the American Indians descend from six and only six ancestral mothers; there are originally only those six mothers, from whom the entire population descended.

You are mistaken. It is talking about 95% of the population TODAY.

These modern descendants are only a fraction from the population which lived prior to Columbus landing in America. The vast majority of the native population were wiped out. You might check out the book, "1491".

An interesting finding of the DNA research was the discovery of a full-blooded Amerindian who had a common ancestor with a woman from Greece.