Mesopotamians on the Pacific Coast

[Rajah Manchou]

The Jaredites would have crossed Asia arriving at the Pacific Coast sometime in the 3rd millennium BC. Some have speculated they settled along the coast near what is now Shandong province in China (source). Ancient DNA in Linzi (Shandong) confirms that an Iranian-like group was present by at least the first millennium BC. 

"The Linzi population does seem to have some genetic affinities with the West as suggested by the original analysis, though the original attribution of “European-like” seems to be misleading. This study suggests that the Linzi individuals are potentially related to early Iranians, who are thought to have been widespread in parts of Central Eurasia and the steppe regions in the first millennium BC..."

"The Linzi material seems to bear a stronger affinity with Near Easterners and Europeans rather than with the present day populations of northern China, though there is a definite component of East and/or Southeast Asians within Linzi as well. We would suggest that rather than a “European-like population” in the ancient Linzi region, the Linzi material may be at least partially related to Indo-Iranians (a branch of Indo-European, though more precisely just “Iranian” by this time period), who were, during that period or at least shortly before it, probably inhabiting areas across Central Eurasia..."

"Whether or not the Linzi site was populated by Iranian-like peoples (and whether these peoples came from the putative steppe Iranians to the west or from the possible Iranians of nearby ancient Xinjiang) is not clear from this study. However, this could explain the affinity between the Linzi site and the West. This would also fall in line with other evidence of admixture in populations in the region. Of course, the most difficult issue is that the early Iranians (and Indo-Iranians) were a linguistic group, and while perhaps bearing some biological affinities, the degree to which the supposed Iranian groups of Central Eurasia had a biological affinity is indeterminate."

A Reanalysis of Eurasian Population History: Ancient DNA Evidence of Population Affinities

What is most interesting about the Linzi DNA, is that it is a curious admixture of Iranian and maternal haplogroups that are most common among Native Americans, namely Haplogroups A, B and D.

"There are, of course, several individuals at Linzi who do appear to belong to haplogroups A, B, D, F, G, and M (all modern Asian haplogroups)...However, as noted above, there are also a number of sequences that do appear to have an affinity to the west..."

Edited August 10, 2017 by Rajah Manchou

[stemelbow]

It certainly feels like there is a world ahead of us to learn about DNA research applied to peoples of the past, even if many conclusions seems fairly sound today.  I guess we'll wait and see.  I'm not suggesting anything about the BoM though.  I don't know there is much history on that to uncover, particularly as it relates to the Americas, or Asia.

[katherine the great]

That Chinese location seems very out of the way for a Jaredite settlement. We know that Iranian type people were present in many locations throughout western, central and eastern Asia for thousands of years so it seems more parsimonious to believe that this is a group who migrated there over time on foot, mixing with local people along the way. This study is from 2006 and it sounds like they used ancient DNA in addition to modern DNA (which is good) but with the improvements in autosomal DNA technology, they may be able to get much more information if they rerun the ancient samples now. They should send them to the Max Planck institute. I found this portion very interesting: 

"Note that the diversity indices for the ancient populations fall within the range of those of modern populations, which indicates that they are comparable to modern populations in terms of variation." 

For those who embrace a global flood model, this cannot refer to the Jaredites. The variation in their DNA would have been very, very small.

[Rajah Manchou]

On 8/11/2017 at 0:34 AM, katherine the great said:

That Chinese location seems very out of the way for a Jaredite settlement.

It does seem that way. But wouldn't it be the most probable terminus for nomads migrating in carts or chariots across the Steppe? 
 

On 8/11/2017 at 0:34 AM, katherine the great said:

We know that Iranian type people were present in many locations throughout western, central and eastern Asia for thousands of years so it seems more parsimonious to believe that this is a group who migrated there over time on foot, mixing with local people along the way.

There are a lot of people, myself included, who did not realize just how far east western Eurasians and Iranians expanded. In this case, it does appear that there were Iranians on the Pacific Coast around the time of the Jaredite migrations. Were they Jaredites? We could only speculate. But it does open up the possibility that a Jaredite-like group could have made this journey.
 

[PeterPear]

I guess a westward migration to the Great Lakes from the Atlantic Ocean up the St. Lawerence River into the Land Northward is out of the question. It didn't work very well for any Europeans, did it? So why would it for Jaredites and Mulekites?

And our Native North American brothers and sisters don't know what they are talking because there are no massive Maya stone pyramids near Palmyra, New York.

Note the image of the "turtle boats" tight like unto a dish (Ether 2:17):

https://decolonialatlas.wordpress.com/2015/05/18/red-skys-migration-chart/

http://zhaawanart.blogspot.com/2013/05/stories-from-land-of-crane-and-turtle.html

Edited August 13, 2017 by PeterPear

[PeterPear]

And there was also the Great Black Swamp meaning Lake Erie was much larger centuries ago making the narrow neck of land between the two seas, into the Land Northward, much narrower than today.

https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Black_Swamp.svg

 

[Rajah Manchou]

6 hours ago, PeterPear said:

I guess a westward migration to the Great Lakes from the Atlantic Ocean up the St. Lawerence River into the Land Northward is out of the question. It didn't work very well for any Europeans, did it? So why would it for Jaredites and Mulekites?

I imagine it isn't out of the question. I wouldn't rule it out.

Do you suppose an eastward migration also would have been possible for the Jaredites?

Edited August 14, 2017 by Rajah Manchou