Native American Genetics and the Book of Mormon

by Robert Rosskopf

The Book of Mormon describes the immigration of several families to the Americas. The first were the families of Jared, and his brother, and other families that came with them. This occurred right after the tower of Babel. This is also supported by both the Mayans and the Incas having the legend of the flood and the tower of Babel as part of their history.

According to Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxochitl, a native Mexican historian, the natives believed in the great flood, a tower that was built to escape future flooding, and the change of the languages, such that no one could understand each other. Seven men and their wives came by land and by sea to what is now Mexico... ("Obras Historicas" by Ixtlilxochitl)

According to early 15th and 16th century Spanish Chronicles, Peru was colonized by descendents of Ophir, and those who traveled with him after the great flood. Ophir and his descendents were led to the Americas by God, who gave them commandments, taught them to build temples, and taught them agriculture.(“Miscelanea Antartica: Una Historia del Peru Antigua” by Miguel Cabello Valboa written in 1586, published in 1951, “Memorias Antiguas Historiales Y Politicas del Peru” by Fernando de Montesinos, written in 1642, published in 1909, “Nueva Coronica y Buen Gobierno” by Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala)

No indication of race is given for these families, other than that they were descended from Noah. Genetics cannot verify this assertion - there just isn't enough information.

Thousands of years later, Lehi arrives by boat with his family to an already populated land. Lehi is descended from Joseph of Egypt and his Egyptian wife. Although Lehi's genes would be just one drop in a bucket, genetically speaking, it might be possible to find some evidence that would corroborate this assertion.

The Emory University School of Medicine did a DNA study of native American bloodlines. This study was published in 1998. Four out of Five haplogroups were found to be Asian, but the fifth haplogroup was caucasian. The caucasian DNA was further identified as Italian, Finn, or Israeli, in origin. This supports the Book of Mormon, as the Lamanites, Nephites, and Mulekites were all descended from Israel, but wouldn't have contributed a statistically large amount of DNA.

A more recent study indentified a DNA sequence that is thought to be distinctly Hebrew.

"Douglas Forbes points out that Y-chromosome SNP biallelic marker Q-P36 (also known by the mutation marker M-242), postulated by geneticist Doron Behar and colleagues to be a founding lineage among Ashkenazi Jewish populations, is also found in Iranian and Iraqi Jews and is a founding lineage group present in 31 percent of self-identified Native Americans in the U.S."
(Y-Chromosome Data, David G. Stewart, Jr., "DNA and the Book of Mormon," FARMS Review 18/1 (2006): 109–138.)

Most of the studies surround Maternal DNA or mtDNA, which remains intact from mother to children. Because there is exactly one copy of mtDNA in each individual, it can only tell us the genetic map of one person - a women - in each generation. If one goes back 30 generations, then we are literally talking about one person in a million. We can learn a great deal about that one individual, but nothing at all about the rest. It may not be possible at all to prove - or disprove - the genetic history of the Book of Mormon.

"Single-Nucleotide Polymorphism (SNP) analysis indicated that three major haplogroups, denoted as C, Q and R, accounted for nearly 96% of Native American Y chromosomes. Haplogroups C and Q were deemed to represent early Native American founding Y Chromosome lineages; however, most haplogroup R lineages present in Native Americans most likely came from recent admixture with Europeans."

("High Resolution SNPs and Microsatellite Haplotypes Point to a Single Recent Entry of Native American Y Chromosomes into the Americas" by Stephen L. Zegura, Tatiana M. Karafet, Lev A. Zhivotovsky, and Michael F. Hammer, 2004)

So the contention that all Native American DNA came from Asia is not supported at all by population geneticists.