Simon G. Southerton. 2004. Losing a Lost Tribe: Native Americans, DNA, and the Mormon Church. Signature Books. The entire book is devoted to the specific topic of DNA evidence and the Book of Mormon." ...[T]he DNA lineages of Central America resemble those of other Native American tribes throughout the two continents. Over 99 percent of the lineages found among native groups from this region are clearly of Asian descent. Modern and ancient DNA samples tested from among the Maya generally fall into the major founding lineage classes... The Mayan Empire has been regarded by Mormons to be the closest to the people of the Book of Mormon because its people were literate and culturally sophisticated. However, leading New World anthropologists, including those specializing in the region, have found the Maya to be similarly related to Asians. Stephen L. Whittington...was not aware of any scientists 'in mainstream anthropology that are trying to prove a Hebrew origin of Native Americans... Archaeologists and physical anthropologists have not found any evidence of Hebrew origins for the people of North, South and Central America.'" (pg 191) D. Andrew Merriwether. 2006. "Mitochondrial DNA," Handbook of North American Indians. Smithsonian Institution Press. Pg 817-830. "Kolman, Sambuughin, and Bermingham (1995) and Merriwether et al. (1996) used the presence of A, B, C, and D to argue for Mongolia as the location for the source population of the New World founders. More specifically perhaps, they argued that the present-day Mongolians and present-day Native Americans are both derived from the same ancestral population in Asia, presumably in the Mongolia-Southern Siberia-Lake Baikal region. T.G. Schurr and S.G. Sherry (2004) strongly favor a southern Siberian origin for the majority of lineages found in the New World." (pg 829) Tatiana M. Karafet, Stephen L. Zegura, and Michael F. Hammer. 2006. "Y Chromosomes," Handbook of North American Indians. Smithsonian Institution. Pp. 831-839. "Zegura et al. (2004) have presented the following scenario for the early peopling of the Americas based on Y chromosome data: a migration of a single, polymorphic Asian population across Beringia with a potential common source for both North American founding lineages (Q and C) in the Altai Mountains of southwest Siberia. Since all their STR-based SNP lineage divergence dates between the Altai and North Asians versus Native Americans...ranged from 10,100 to 17,200 year ago, they favored a relatively late entry model." (pg. 839) Defenders of the book's historical authenticity suggest that the Book of Mormon does not disallow for other groups of people to have contributed to the genetic make-up of Native Americans. Nevertheless, this is a departure from the traditional view that Israelites are the primary ancestors of Native Americans, and therefore would be expected to present some genetic evidence of Near Eastern origins. A recently announced change in the Book of Mormon's introduction, however, allows for a greater diversity of ancestry of Native Americans. See, for example, the following Deseret News article published on November 9, 2007: Intro Change in Book of Mormon Spurs DiscussionArhivirano 2010-05-13 na Wayback Machine-u
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Simon G. Southerton. 2004. Losing a Lost Tribe: Native Americans, DNA, and the Mormon Church. Signature Books. The entire book is devoted to the specific topic of DNA evidence and the Book of Mormon." ...[T]he DNA lineages of Central America resemble those of other Native American tribes throughout the two continents. Over 99 percent of the lineages found among native groups from this region are clearly of Asian descent. Modern and ancient DNA samples tested from among the Maya generally fall into the major founding lineage classes... The Mayan Empire has been regarded by Mormons to be the closest to the people of the Book of Mormon because its people were literate and culturally sophisticated. However, leading New World anthropologists, including those specializing in the region, have found the Maya to be similarly related to Asians. Stephen L. Whittington...was not aware of any scientists 'in mainstream anthropology that are trying to prove a Hebrew origin of Native Americans... Archaeologists and physical anthropologists have not found any evidence of Hebrew origins for the people of North, South and Central America.'" (pg 191) D. Andrew Merriwether. 2006. "Mitochondrial DNA," Handbook of North American Indians. Smithsonian Institution Press. Pg 817-830. "Kolman, Sambuughin, and Bermingham (1995) and Merriwether et al. (1996) used the presence of A, B, C, and D to argue for Mongolia as the location for the source population of the New World founders. More specifically perhaps, they argued that the present-day Mongolians and present-day Native Americans are both derived from the same ancestral population in Asia, presumably in the Mongolia-Southern Siberia-Lake Baikal region. T.G. Schurr and S.G. Sherry (2004) strongly favor a southern Siberian origin for the majority of lineages found in the New World." (pg 829) Tatiana M. Karafet, Stephen L. Zegura, and Michael F. Hammer. 2006. "Y Chromosomes," Handbook of North American Indians. Smithsonian Institution. Pp. 831-839. "Zegura et al. (2004) have presented the following scenario for the early peopling of the Americas based on Y chromosome data: a migration of a single, polymorphic Asian population across Beringia with a potential common source for both North American founding lineages (Q and C) in the Altai Mountains of southwest Siberia. Since all their STR-based SNP lineage divergence dates between the Altai and North Asians versus Native Americans...ranged from 10,100 to 17,200 year ago, they favored a relatively late entry model." (pg. 839) Defenders of the book's historical authenticity suggest that the Book of Mormon does not disallow for other groups of people to have contributed to the genetic make-up of Native Americans. Nevertheless, this is a departure from the traditional view that Israelites are the primary ancestors of Native Americans, and therefore would be expected to present some genetic evidence of Near Eastern origins. A recently announced change in the Book of Mormon's introduction, however, allows for a greater diversity of ancestry of Native Americans. See, for example, the following Deseret News article published on November 9, 2007: Intro Change in Book of Mormon Spurs DiscussionArhivirano 2010-05-13 na Wayback Machine-u
