Native Americans Have West Eurasian Origins

[JAHS]

"This topic seems to be already covered in General Discussions.

Which was first?"

 

This one was posted about 10 minutes before the one in General Discussions. It was about a news article so I posted it here.

[EllenMaksoud]

"Nearly one-third of Native American genes come from west Eurasian people linked to the Middle East and Europe, rather than entirely from East Asians as previously thought, according to a newly sequenced genome."

 

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/11/131120-science-native-american-people-migration-siberia-genetics/

 

This is very interesting information.  I'm getting old enough that I don't get as excited about scientific finds that may provide some credibility to Book of Mormon historicity though.  I've watched these kind of things before, and those who oppose Mormonism seem to me to dig their heels in for a while and then move on to the next argument.  I remember when the arguments included, "Native Americans didn't have walls and fortifications and large scale wars."  When this was proven beyond almost any doubt, it moved to something else.

 

I am not one of those guys who sees a baptismal font in every hole in the ground.  While earning a graduate degree in Mesoamerican Archaeology, I prided myself on avoiding "over enthusiasm."  But I have to say that if it were not for a strong academic bias against the Book of Mormon, it would have to be agreed that it is at least a historical document.  It is not possible to prove it's divinity (academically), but the amount of historical parallels in any other arena would be considered at least "historically based" (in my humble opinion of course).

 

Anyway, this is an interesting find and one that I have expected for a while.  It will be interesting to see the response of the  "DNA and the Book of Mormon" crowd.

If you Google Muslims in early America, or Arabs in America before Columbus, there is some interesting reading. I think I read something about f Archeologists finding Arabic words in certain American Indian languages.  Byzantine, and Ottoman traders were all over the place, and it would not surprise me that they got to America, not just the Caribbean.  I think I read something about Arabic words being found in American Indian languages a substantial distance up the Mississippi.

 

http://islamicbulletin.org/newsletters/issue_17/explore.aspx

[Darren10]

How does it show this?

If Middle Eastern people crossed over to the americas then certainly Lehi, a Middle Easterner, could have done so as well.

[Tacenda]

I'll bet a Mormon is behind this article.

[Robert F. Smith]

DNA from a 24,000 year old bone? Isn't that a little early to verify anything in the Book of Mormon?

Very interesting nonetheless.

24,000 years BP for a Siberian bone is indeed early, and right at the period of earliest migration of humans to the New World, which continiued by both land and sea for thousands of years.

However, there is also DNA evidence from 17,000 BP mentioned  in this article.  Yokels have been claiming for years that only East Asians came to the New World before 1492, a myth which continues to be debunked.

[EllenMaksoud]

   It looks like this!

Is this more thrashing about to find enough proof so that it will ease our lack of faith?

[cdowis]

I don't see what relevance something 25,000 years old would have to the book of mormon.

 

 

OK, and this chronology disproves the Biblical account, and destroys the foundation of the JudeoChristian religion.  So, game is over for Christianity itself, if you want to make such an argument.

 

Any discussion over the Book of Mormon is moot.

[Alan]

Personally, I don't believe the bone is 24,000 years old.

[Vance]

Personally, I don't believe the bone is 24,000 years old.

I don't either.

[cdowis]

FAIR has an interesting video related to this OP.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1QNQtV1C-U

[katherine the great]

I'm curious to know why some people are posting that this is middle eastern dna.  What these articles state is that there is a Western Eurasian origin for some of the indigenous people of the Americas--meaning that this little boy's relatives were some of the very people who crossed over Beringia to the Americas over 10,000 years ago--just not the Far East Asian ones.  Wisely, this study is based on the entire genome and not just mitochondrial and Y DNA which only gives a very narrow set of information.  It makes perfect sense and also explains the X haplogroup found in some N. Americans.  The little boy's maternal line was U-very European and if found among modern N. Americans, always assumed post Columbus admixture (and probably was.)  But this is proof that some of the people crossing Beringia probably did carry European mitochondrial DNA and X might have been the only one that didn't disappear over time.

As to the poster who stated that this happened after Noah's flood...maybe that was tongue-in-cheek?  Did the flood also wash up all the artifacts buried with this little boy, reposition the remains into a skeleton and distribute the artifacts in perfect order around him?  Sheesh....

[rameumptom]

The bone can easily be 24,000 years old.  There is much evidence of peoples from way before the traditional Creation of 6000 years ago, which simply means we need to redefine what was going on in regards to Adam and Eve.  Perhaps the first man and woman introduced to the gospel?

 

That the bone shows people were here from Eurasia means that the previous idea that there is no Eurasian DNA so the BoM is now debunked, is debunked.  Yes, we do not know of any coming sooner to the Americas, but we now know it happened at least once.  This opens the door to a more credible claim for the BoM itself within history.

[katherine the great]

Is this more thrashing about to find enough proof so that it will ease our lack of faith?

I guess I don't understand the question.  

[thesometimesaint]

If Middle Eastern people crossed over to the americas then certainly Lehi, a Middle Easterner, could have done so as well.

Exactly. The critics of the Church have one less thing to criticize. But I don't worry they'll just find more.

[blooit]

I'm curious to know why some people are posting that this is middle eastern dna.

 

The National Geographic article mentions a couple times that the DNA is found in Eurasian and Middle Eastern peoples, although I'm not sure that matters much.  In fact, it may actually play into anti-mormon arguments so that any future middle eastern DNA found will be blamed on these earlier migrations.  Still interesting though.

[katherine the great]

Exactly. The critics of the Church have one less thing to criticize. But I don't worry they'll just find more.

I agree with the last part of your statement.  I guess I just don't see the connection.  People are here, so people did cross from the Old World to the Americas.  I wondered if I was missing anything from these articles.  This skeleton was not middle eastern, and it isn't posited that it crossed into the Americas only that it is surely genetically connected to both the Old World and the new.

[katherine the great]

The National Geographic article mentions a couple times that the DNA is found in Eurasian and Middle Eastern peoples, although I'm not sure that matters much.  In fact, it may actually play into anti-mormon arguments so that any future middle eastern DNA found will be blamed on these earlier migrations.  Still interesting though.

Well, as long as there are people, there will be arguments--haha!  Having studied archaeology though, I'm sure you can see the bigger picture here.  Putting this find into the historical context, it can't surprise anyone that there could be a broad distribution of this DNA--especially in light of them being a migratory people.  What I see is that it explains 1. why one of the common male Native American haplogroups ® is found in Western Eurasia and not far east asia and 2. Why we have mtdna haplogroup X.

[blooit]

My background is in archaeological anthropology, not biological.  Once we start talking DNA, I have to try and remember some obscure lecture I had during the biological anthropology prerequisites in my undergrad.  

 

I guess the main thing, as far as the Book of Mormon is concerned, that I take away is that the DNA is not what the BOM critics try to claim it is.  So the argument will shift again.  It will be interesting to see where the next one goes.

[katherine the great]

My background is in archaeological anthropology, not biological.  Once we start talking DNA, I have to try and remember some obscure lecture I had during the biological anthropology prerequisites in my undergrad.  

Okay then, just try thinking of the distribution of DNA haplotypes as superficially similar to the distribution of the typologies of artifacts.  Wherever people go, they take them, but the type and distributions change over time, through migration, environmental pressures, intermarriage and sometimes seemingly for no reason at all!  

[thesometimesaint]

I agree with the last part of your statement.  I guess I just don't see the connection.  People are here, so people did cross from the Old World to the Americas.  I wondered if I was missing anything from these articles.  This skeleton was not middle eastern, and it isn't posited that it crossed into the Americas only that it is surely genetically connected to both the Old World and the new.

 

From my reading of the article it shows a direct genetic connection between the Americas and the Middle east. The find is way too early for any BoM people. It does show that there is a closer relationship to the Middle East than the Far East.

 

If they could do it there is nothing that precludes Lehi from doing it.

[katherine the great]

From my reading of the article it shows a direct genetic connection between the Americas and the Middle east. The find is way too early for any BoM people. It does show that there is a closer relationship to the Middle East than the Far East.

 

If they could do it there is nothing that precludes Lehi from doing it.

Do you mean that Lehi could have shared a common paternal ancestor with this child?  If that is what you are saying, I agree.

[Darren10]

I agree with the last part of your statement.  I guess I just don't see the connection.  People are here, so people did cross from the Old World to the Americas.  I wondered if I was missing anything from these articles.  This skeleton was not middle eastern, and it isn't posited that it crossed into the Americas only that it is surely genetically connected to both the Old World and the new.

 

But the DNA is found in Middle Easterners. Could they have originated there? Even without a direct fossil connection it's quite possible.

[Darren10]

Do you mean that Lehi could have shared a common paternal ancestor with this child?  If that is what you are saying, I agree.

 

Now, just who do they call papi?

[Darren10]

Do you mean that Lehi could have shared a common paternal ancestor with this child?  If that is what you are saying, I agree.

 

So just who would they call papi?

[katherine the great]

But the DNA is found in Middle Easterners. Could they have originated there? Even without a direct fossil connection it's quite possible.

Could who have originated where?  What is your hypothesis?  I believe that this find supports a hypothesis that says that the Americas were originally populated by Old World people in waves of migration across Beringia who were of East Asian ancestry and populations that were of European and Western Eurasian ancestry.  Over time, the two groups blended into populations that shared a limited number of genetic types due at least in part to the flooding of Beringa.  This is the genepool that modern Native Americans come from.  I'm not sure what difference it makes that some of those people were descendants of people who migrated east across the Asian continent over time.  This isn't evidence that a couple of families walked across a vast continent to get to a new one.  These are migrations of thousands of people over thousands of years--not a few families making purposeful voyages.