No Mention Of "lamanites" In New Dna Essay?

[thesometimesaint]

Given gene flow, the Lehites' genetic material would have spread to most populations in the Americas a while back. If one defines a Lamanite as a descendant of Lehi, then it's likely most aboriginal americans could be considered Lamanites.

 

 

We have no idea as to what Lehi's genetic makers look like. The term Lamanite is anyone not Nephite.

[Freedom]

Since the Book of Mormon makes it clear that the lamanites are all non-Nephites, I am not clear what your issue is. 

[ALarson]

We have no idea as to what Lehi's genetic makers look like. The term Lamanite is anyone not Nephite.

Of course we should know what Lehi's genetic makeup is.  We know exactly what the DNA lineages are from the information given to us by Joseph Smith through other Prophets and leaders.  Their genealogy is traced back to Hebrew origins and they came from the Middle East.

 

We also know that Lehi was not Asian.

Edited February 4, 2014 by ALarson

[The Nehor]

Of course we should know what Lehi's genetic makeup is.  We know exactly what the DNA lineages are from the information given to us by Joseph Smith through other Prophets and leaders.  Their genealogy is traced back to Hebrew origins and they came from the Middle East.

 

We also know that Lehi was not Asian.

 

At the risk of being repetitious:

 

 

We can at best make guesses. I have a good guess towards my haplogroup but I could very easily be wrong.

 

Lehi not being Asian is irrelevant. We have already dealt with that point. Why are you so sure that there would be recognizable markers surviving in the Americas after 2600 years?

 

Where is that banging your head against a brick wall emoticon when I need it?

[JulieM]

It's true that we do not need to know Lehi's exact DNA. We are not trying to match only one Native American's DNA to Lehi's specific DNA. The only thing this DNA information tells us is the race or ethnic match. So yes, it matters very much that Lehi was not Asian since that is the ethnic origin of Native Americans.

[Freedom]

Of course we should know what Lehi's genetic makeup is.  We know exactly what the DNA lineages are from the information given to us by Joseph Smith through other Prophets and leaders.  Their genealogy is traced back to Hebrew origins and they came from the Middle East.

 

We also know that Lehi was not Asian.

and how would we know this? He wasn't from the tribe of judah, and we have no idea who his parents are. It is completely and absolutely impossible to know his genetic make up. We only know the genetic make up of most modern jews. This is of absolutely no help to us. If we knew his genetic make up we would have found all the lost tribes by now. 

[thesometimesaint]

Of course we should know what Lehi's genetic makeup is.  We know exactly what the DNA lineages are from the information given to us by Joseph Smith through other Prophets and leaders.  Their genealogy is traced back to Hebrew origins and they came from the Middle East.

 

We also know that Lehi was not Asian.

 

We know that Lehi was a descendant of Joseph(Son of Jacob). Jacob's genetics are unknown. Joseph married an Egyptian also genetic equally unknown. We don't know Sariah's genetics. Nor the genetics of Zoram the servant of Laban. Nor the Ismaelites. Nor the genetics of those the Lamanites intermarried with. After 600 years there were no more Nephites, Lamanites, or any other "ite's"  It was a religio-political designation after they relapsed into factionalism. All the remaining Nephites died out(or were killed) about 200 years after that.

[JulieM]

We know that Lehi was a descendant of Joseph(Son of Jacob). Jacob's genetics are unknown. Joseph married an Egyptian also genetic equally unknown. We don't know Sariah's genetics. Nor the genetics of Zoram the servant of Laban. Nor the Ismaelites. Nor the genetics of those the Lamanites intermarried with. After 600 years there were no more Nephites, Lamanites, or any other "ite's"  It was a religio-political designation after they relapsed into factionalism. All the remaining Nephites died out(or were killed) about 200 years after that.

So then, we've been mistaken to believe the Native Americans are the Lamanites or people from the Book of Mormon? Which is it?

[thesometimesaint]

It's true that we do not need to know Lehi's exact DNA. We are not trying to match only one Native American's DNA to Lehi's specific DNA. The only thing this DNA information tells us is the race or ethnic match. So yes, it matters very much that Lehi was not Asian since that is the ethnic origin of Native Americans.

 

It is true that the majority of DNA evidence shows a Asian origin. What you seem to forget is that the Middle East is in Asia. Also that a small group of indeterminate DNA would be very hard to pick up after 2600 years. Also keep in the mind the Caucasian Mummies of China.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarim_mummies

[thesometimesaint]

So then, we've been mistaken to believe the Native Americans are the Lamanites or people from the Book of Mormon? Which is it?

 

I've never believed ALL the Amerids are Lamanites by descent. Only that those spoken of in the Book of Mormon are.

[The Nehor]

So then, we've been mistaken to believe the Native Americans are the Lamanites or people from the Book of Mormon? Which is it?

 

No. You were mistaken if you expected to find modern Jewish genetic markers in a population infiltrated by a small number of Israelties over 2600 years ago. Everyone there could be a descendant of Lehi and in that amount of time there is no reason to expect to find them in a haplogroup matching modern jews.

[JulieM]

No. You were mistaken if you expected to find modern Jewish genetic markers in a population infiltrated by a small number of Israelties over 2600 years ago. Everyone there could be a descendant of Lehi and in that amount of time there is no reason to expect to find them in a haplogroup matching modern jews.

And you're the one banging your head against the wall when presented with well documented facts on here? You can't seriously believe what you just posted above.

[Calm]

So then, we've been mistaken to believe the Native Americans are the Lamanites or people from the Book of Mormon? Which is it?

No DNA does not equal no descendants, see the blog I linked to above. As time goes on, your genealogical ancestors grow exponentially (2, 4, 8, 16.....). At first, your genetic ancestors do too....then the numbers of that slow down, go back far enough, you are missing lots in your DNA that would show up in your genealogy.

While the science is growing in leaps and bounds and who knows where it might be in a couple of years, I don't see how they can ever control for that given the nature of how DNA is passed on (no person gets a complete DNA picture from both parents).

What this means may be different for a group that marries within a small local population and then grows into a larger group that spreads across two continents along with the DNA of some of that group (but likely some individuals of the 30-50are lost) than it does for a small group (30-50) that marries into a larger group (100s, then likely 1000s and 100,000s etc) and then grows into a larger group and spreads its descendants over two continents...though perhaps not its DNA (it might survive, it probably won't though).

Added from the link:

"As a rough rule of thumb the autosomes you received from (say) your mother, k generations back is broken into (22+33*(k-1)) chucks, as your genome comes in 22 chromosomes and there are on average 33 recombination events per transmitted genome. These chunks are spread across your 2^(k-1) maternal ancestors. So, for example, nine generations ago the autosomes you receive from (say) your mum are broke, on average, into 286 large chunks, and these are spread across your 256 ancestors. Thus on average each of ancestors has contributed only a single block to you, and by chance it is possibly that they contribute zero. This gets worse the further we go back in time, your genome is broken up into more and more chunks, but this does not grow as fast as your number of ancestors. This makes it increasingly likely that you inherit no autosomal material from a particular ancestor."

Edited February 4, 2014 by calmoriah

[MichelleD]

And you're the one banging your head against the wall when presented with well documented facts on here? You can't seriously believe what you just posted above.

JulieM, I agree with you but I honestly believe that Nehor and others DO believe what they are claiming. I think that it's just another way of looking at the data and evidence. Time will tell what all of the DNA information will reveal (at least that's my opinion).

[Calm]

And you're the one banging your head against the wall when presented with well documented facts on here? You can't seriously believe what you just posted above.

Please show the well documented fact that if one has an ancestor, one must also have DNA markers from that ancestor. Iow, if we go back 2500 years, in that generation of your ancestors, if we tested you we could find some sort of match to each of your ancestors.

Do we agree that DNA is not like putting a drop of blood into a litre of blood and mixing it all up so that if we had accurate enough measures we would record the the presence of that drop of blood, diluted as it is? My understanding is that DNA is like separating out the different aspects of blood like plasma and hemoglobin and platelets and whatever else (that is all I remember from biology class) and putting some of each into different solutions...no matter how accurate a measurement, if a solution didn't get some platelets added to it one isn't going to find it. If not all DNA markers are passed on to each descendant, how can we guarantee that with a very long period of time, say 2500 years any markers from a small group of ancestors (Lehi, Sariah. Ishmael and his wife and Zoram) will be left?

[JulieM]

Please show the well documented fact that if one has an ancestor, one must also have DNA markers from that ancestor. Iow, if we go back 2500 years, in that generation of your ancestors, if we tested you we could find some sort of match to each of your ancestors.

Do we agree that DNA is not like putting a drop of blood into a litre of blood and mixing it all up so that if we had accurate enough measures we would record the the presence of that drop of blood, diluted as it is? My understanding is that DNA is like separating out the different aspects of blood like plasma and hemoglobin and platelets and whatever else (that is all I remember from biology class) and putting some of each into different solutions...no matter how accurate a measurement, if a solution didn't get some platelets added to it one isn't going to find it. If not all DNA markers are passed on to each descendant, how can we guarantee that with a very long period of time, say 2500 years any markers from a small group of ancestors (Lehi, Sariah. Ishmael and his wife and Zoram) will be left?

I agree with much of your post. But, please remember we are not talking about an exact match of markers here from two specific family members or ancestors. The DNA match here is such that we are only looking at race or ethnic match.

[The Nehor]

And you're the one banging your head against the wall when presented with well documented facts on here? You can't seriously believe what you just posted above.

 

I believe it completely. I find genetics fascinating. I've only read several books on the subject of genetic drift, a couple of papers, and followed it from my college years when there was a boom of testing projects. I followed them regularly.

 

Assuming that each generation is 30 years long Native Americans have 2 to the power of 68 direct ancestors going back to Lehi's time assuming two parents for each succeeding generation . That comes to 295,147,905,179,352,830,000 people who have contributed genetic material to you. Obviously some of them gave many many many many many times as families remeld down the line and that many people have not lived on the earth in the entire history of the earth. Lehi's DNA must be superstrong and overwrites all others so if he is in there somewhere you will find Middle Eastern markers no matter how many of those quintillion other donors might be Asian or anything else.

 

 

Please show the well documented fact that if one has an ancestor, one must also have DNA markers from that ancestor. Iow, if we go back 2500 years, in that generation of your ancestors, if we tested you we could find some sort of match to each of your ancestors.

Do we agree that DNA is not like putting a drop of blood into a litre of blood and mixing it all up so that if we had accurate enough measures we would record the the presence of that drop of blood, diluted as it is? My understanding is that DNA is like separating out the different aspects of blood like plasma and hemoglobin and platelets and whatever else (that is all I remember from biology class) and putting some of each into different solutions...no matter how accurate a measurement, if a solution didn't get some platelets added to it one isn't going to find it. If not all DNA markers are passed on to each descendant, how can we guarantee that with a very long period of time, say 2500 years any markers from a small group of ancestors (Lehi, Sariah. Ishmael and his wife and Zoram) will be left?

 

You are right. It is not diluted. Half of it is lost every generation. That is how DNA works. You get half of your parent's DNA and it is random. Put the number above as a fraction and that is how much DNA you get from someone that far removed genetically. Again, you would almost certainly get a lot of them multiple times (millions and billions of times even) but that is still only a fraction of your DNA. When you test what you have left this is called Autosomal DNA. It can give you a rough ethnicity percentage back for several centuries and can identify cousins out to about 5th or 6th generation.

 

The only effective way to track population in the is through the X and Y chromosomes because those can be tracked. Here is the simple version. The reality is of course more complex:

 

My dad gave me my Y chromosome with no blending with my mother's DNA. He got it from his dad unchanged and so on back to Adam. I said unchanged but that is only usually the case. There have been mutations. Mostly in the junk portion of the DNA. Now if we can figure out who has what mutation we can track them (roughly) back to the original mutation. That is a Y Chromosome haplotype. It works with some variations for women too with their X chromosome.

 

Now if we knew Lehi's exact haplotype and no one else in that population had the same haplotype we could probably (assuming no mutations or other craziness) find his direct male descendants (same with Ishmael and Zoram). That is assuming there are any. There could have easily been a generation or two with a lot of daughters marrying into the preexisting population and then that Y chromosome died out. Population studies so far seem to show (I say seem because this area of study is still pretty young) that smaller groups that intermarry tend to, over time, be dominated by a small group of haplotypes while the rest die out. That is how we track genetic drift. We know of some Middle Eastern haplotypes and can find direct male descendants of the original mutant (for lack of a better word). This does not mean there are no descendants of Lehi. If I have a daughter she will not carry my Y chromosome. She and her descendants would still be Nehorites.

 

Now if there were no Jaredites or any other population to mix with then this DNA evidence would be damning. It would mean that no direct male descendants survived and thus, with no group with which to intermarry, the group would have died out. If there were then this shows exactly what I would expect to see.

 

Anyone wanting to believe the Nephites and Lamanites never intermixed with anyone else are either doomed to admit there are no descendants of Lehi left or that there are so few that we have not found them and they are possibly one of those groups down in Brazil that are still unconnected to the rest of the world (very unlikely but possible), or they have to give up the no intermarrying with another population thing. I do not believe this. I have not believed since my first serious study of the Book of Mormon in my teens. If you are one of them and this DNA study crushes you, sorry. If you can accept that there were other populations with which to intermarry and suggest that DNA evidence proves that Lehi and company were never in the Americas then you are flat-out wrong.

Edited February 4, 2014 by The Nehor

[Calm]

What difference would looking at race or ethnicity mean? Serious question...isn't DNA DNA? There isn't some sort of general ethnic DNA that sticks around for each descendant no matter what, is there?

I assume you mean that we aren't looking at one ancestor, but multiple ancestors...but 20 generations back we have numerically over a millilion ancestors (whatever 2 to the 20th is) for just 20 generations away from Lehi and we are way more than that. Now if the family stayed in the same location and married wothin a small group, that number drops way down....but if they didn't? We have five ancestors known for the Lehite descendants, adding in the Mulekites whose makeup we don't know but let's guess about the same size but more families....so let's say they add in 20 more ancestors of that generation.

That is 25 ancestors out of a potential 1 million. Assuming that group was all there was for thousands of years (only Mulekites and Lehites on the two continents) cuts the million ancestors down to the 25 and how many are added on since the protection was lifted (end of the Nephites, Vikings, hints of Chinese and other explorers, Columbus and his group...whatever theory you want to choose)...so good chance something of the 25 is found it seems to me(given that a large portion of each generation's ancestors would have something of the 25 in them since there were large numbers here when each of the new group postNephites came).

But opening up the ancestors to a large population already here when the Lehities and Mulekites arrive (even just assuming there were Jaredites survivors confuses the picture since we don't know their genetic makeup and they may have well been primarily Asian in DNA, especially if they traveled through that area and picked up new members along the way) adds substantially to the number of actual ancestors...total guess but at least in the 1000s and possibly 100,000s (will have to go look up what they predict is the actual likely number for different areas (more migrations would equal more ancestors so different areas would have different amounts). So now you have 25 in 10,000 genealogical ancestors (I am assuming that is a very conservative number given the potential over 1,000,000 but i may be wrong).

Added on: looks like Nehor did the math back and didnt stop at the 20th as i did...thus demonstrating even the greater odds.

Howver we can keep things simple and just compare the number of likely Israelite (in location at least) ancestors with genetic ancestors going just 20 generations back (maybe Nehor will plug in the numbers to the formula given for the number of generations he's calculated, on my ipad so cant do it) and given the info from the blog I linked to, you have at most around 1200 genetic ancestors from the 20th generation (see the graph here: http://gcbias.org/2013/11/11/how-does-your-number-of-genetic-ancestors-grow-back-over-time/ ). Seems to me quite possible that none of the 25 are in that 1200....and given the number only grows even if slowly (up to a point) and never decreases, the further one goes back the more the 25 have to compete with.

Edited February 4, 2014 by calmoriah

[The Nehor]

What difference would looking at race or ethnicity mean? Serious question...isn't DNA DNA? There isn't some sort of general ethnic DNA that sticks around for each descendant no matter what, is there?

 

No. The only mostly guaranteed DNA that you keep is your direct male line if a guy. Women have an X chromosome from each parent but those blend which makes it more difficult to work with. You keep half of each parent's DNA which means you may or may not inherit it.

[erdoch]

What would bring us closer to "testing" for Lamanites in Ancient America would be sequencing the genomes of dead Israelites ca. 600 BC and of dead Native Americans in potential Lehite locations in the New World before and after that same time period. That would tell us a lot more than we can based on simple DNA testing of today's populations. 

[erdoch]

(of course assuming that the Israelites tested for reflect at least somewhat the genome of Lehi and Ishmael and such)

[Calm]

Am reading this now, so no numbers yet...but for those interested in actual as opposed to potential ancestors:

http://thewildpeak.wordpress.com/2012/03/04/how-many-ancestors-do-you-have/

Lots of assumptions including a closed society, but it demonstrates that the 25 if placed within a larger population would be a drop in the actual ancestor amount, thus reducing the probability of their DNA surviving to very low.

"Going back 30 generations to around 1077, to just after the Norman Conquest, we saw earlier that the maximum number of ancestors in that one generation was just over one billion (i.e. 1,000 million). Wachter’s model calculates that this individual would have 952,279 distinct ancestors in 1077 – only around 0.09% of the maximum but representing fully 86% of the total estimated English population of 1.1 million. This is ultimately the basis for the assertion highlighted at the beginning of this essay that everyone with English ancestry today is descended from 86% of people alive in the country at the time of William the Conqueror."

"In a very interesting and informative series of popular articles, based partly on Kenneth Wachter’s analysis, Brain Pears, a genealogist and physicist, argued that in general ‘the number of ancestors in any generation will be little different from that obtained by our simple doubling scheme’, (mitigated only slightly by a relatively modest level of cousin marriage) back to a point, around 1300 in his analysis, at which you are descended from almost everyone alive in the country at that time. He argued that further back from there the number of your ancestors would then have followed the (declining) total population (to be strict the total population per generation). Given the evidence for the limited degree of cousin marriage in Britain or England over the course of the last few hundred years, and even allowing for the fact that it no doubt was more prevalent further back in history, this would seem a reasonable conclusion."

Even if we assume a ton more intermarrying in the New World and no immigration (which we know isn't true), is it not a valid assumption that the 25 ancestors of Lehi's generation are minuscule in comparison to the larger population numbers that have been estimated for various parts of the New World at that time that they would have mixed with?

Edited February 4, 2014 by calmoriah

[The Nehor]

What would bring us closer to "testing" for Lamanites in Ancient America would be sequencing the genomes of dead Israelites ca. 600 BC and of dead Native Americans in potential Lehite locations in the New World before and after that same time period. That would tell us a lot more than we can based on simple DNA testing of today's populations. 

 

That would be ideal especially if we added testing for a couple of centuries after they arrived to see the early mixtures.

[erdoch]

That would be ideal especially if we added testing for a couple of centuries after they arrived to see the early mixtures.

 

Right. I just don't know if there's any momentum yet for sequencing dead people much... with 2010 being the first time the nuclear genome of an extinct human was sequenced (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100210131948.htm). I do think such sequencing could throw more light on DNA history and migrations generally - and if large-scale sequencing of dead people are going to to take place in the future we might find ourselves in a new DNA and Book of Mormon debate a couple decades from now!

[The Nehor]

Right. I just don't know if there's any momentum yet for sequencing dead people much... with 2010 being the first time the nuclear genome of an extinct human was sequenced (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100210131948.htm). I do think such sequencing could throw more light on DNA history and migrations generally - and if large-scale sequencing of dead people are going to to take place in the future we might find ourselves in a new DNA and Book of Mormon debate a couple decades from now!

 

We might but we would need a very large sample size in a specific area which we do not know and in a very specific time period. Not saying it could not be done but it would be difficult.