For many decades the indigenous inhabitants of the Americas were thought by many members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to be the descendants of the peoples mentioned in the Book of Mormon. In particular, the term "Lamanite" was often applied sweepingly to Native Americans in the United States. The introduction to the Book of Mormon stated that the Lamanites...
"...Are the principal ancestors of the American Indians."
We now know from genetic studies that this is false. The indigenous peoples of the Americas are almost entirely the offspring of migrants that came from Asia, as verified by studies on maternal and paternal haplogroups.
However, the assumption stated in the introduction of the Book of Mormon is a modern contrivance, and the Book of Mormon itself never states that from Alaska to Patagonia the natives of this continent are Book of Mormon peoples. As such genetic studies have proven the modern assumption false, not the Book of Mormon itself.
Native American Patrilineal Ancestry
To begin with allow me to examine the genetic heritage of the Native American peoples. I will not be defining critical terms on the assumption that readers have a basic knowledge of inheritance and genetics.
While most of our genetic material may have been inherited from either our mother or father, or their mother or father, in certain places you find DNA which is only passed on from father to son, or mother to daughter. By studying the DNA which is only passed down from father to son we can observe our ancestry along a patrilineal line going back to the origin of our species, and likewise for women along a maternal line back to the origin as well.
For the patrilineal line the critical DNA is on the Y-Chromosome. Because this chromosome cannot be inherited from the mother it can form a useful link to study paternity amongst men going back for many generations. By studying the presence or absence of specific mutations on the Y-Chromosomes of different men we can estimate how closely related they are. Studies of populations arounds the globe have given us an unprecedented view into the family tree of humanity and our migrations and mixing around this world.
Groups of people who share a common paternal ancestry are termed a "Haplogroup," and are assigned a letter to distinguish them. Here is a map that is useful in seeing the global distribution of paternal haplogroups before modern migrations occurred (from wikimedia commons):
One may see from this map that Europeans, for example, belong primarily to Haplogroup R (either R1a or R1b). Chinese men, by comparison, largely fall into Haplogroup O.
In the Americas native men largely belong to Haplogroup Q, with some more recent admixture from Haplogroup C. This is the crux of the problem: Haplogroup C has no relationship with or presence in Southwest Asia, where Lehi and his family came from. This single fact apparently destroys the entire foundational claim of the Book of Mormon, unless you are willing to look more deeply at the data.
There is, in fact, a small amount of Haplogroup R mixed into Native American peoples, though it is only present in certain North American groups and never at a density of more than 25% percent. Its primary geographic distribution appears to be amongst the Algonquin peoples of the American Midwest and Great Lakes region. We will study this more later.
Native American Matrilineal Ancestry
On the matrilineal side there is a direct inheritance from woman to woman of a very specific kind of DNA that is not found in the nucleus of the cell, but rather in the mitochondria. Mothers pass near exact copies of the mitochondria in their cells to their offspring through the egg (sperm, which fertilizes the egg, has no mitochondria). Because the daughter will then pass the same near exact copy down to her own daughter and so on this Mitochondrial DNA, or mtDNA, can help us trace matrilineal lines back to our human origins much like the Y-Chromosomal DNA helps us track paternity, and like with the Y-Chromosome we can compare how closely related two women are by looking at key mutations.
Matrilineal descendance is likewise categorized into haplogroups and assigned letters, though the letters do not correspond with the Y-DNA haplogroups. Here is a map of the distribution of those haplogroups before modern times (
from wikimedia commons):
As with the patrilineal haplogroups, studies on mtDNA show that the majority of Native American women come from unique haplogroups not seen in Europe or the Middle East, namely Haplogroups A, B, C, and D - all of which indicate a northeast Asian connection for the Native American peoples.
Except for a bit of Haplogroup X, which has strong connections to the Middle East, and exists as a minority in the Native American peoples of the American Midwest and Great Lakes region.
Western Haplogroups in North America
A fair amount of diversity exists in the R haplogroup found in Northeastern North America. Some of it very closely matches European DNA and likely comes from admixture at some point. There are, of course, many points of contact between Europeans and Natives peoples that are both proven or plausible before Columbus. However, the geographic distribution of much of this DNA is inland, far from locations where European contact could have occurred. Furthermore, some of the samples taken show mutations that suggest it is much older than any possible European contact, perhaps even making it a founding population that crossed over the Bering Strait.
One might wonder how these ancient DNA samples could have appeared in this remote corner of North America, as those samples with unique mutations appear in neither Asia nor Europe. It is as though some ancient precursor to the more modern variants of the R Haplogroup found in Europe was picked up millennia ago and dropped in the midst of a far away continent.
The scientific community is willing to consider many possibilities for this apparent ancient airlift to the new world, except for a few (source: Austin Whittall):
"Then there are some religious beliefs involved (Mormons) with lost tribes reaching America, and things can get even worse: Atlantean migrations... you get it, sci-fi junk. These strange theories are frowned upon by mainstream scholars and even a slight formal support to any of these notions is academically unacceptable."
Sadly, this tendency to dismiss the Book of Mormon migrations out of hand or cluster them with absurd theories seems to be common across much of the scientific community. After all, academia is not without its pride and prejudices. In spite of denialism in the secular academic community there are plausible reasons why this could suggest Book of Mormon connections.
Amongst the non-European R Haplogroup samples there is some diversity, one might expect. After all, the Book of Mormon cites at least four potential sources for these samples
- Lehi, descended from Manasseh (Alma 10:3)
- Ishmael, descended from Ephraim
- Zoram, apparently an Israelite but unknown
- Mulek, descended from Judah (ancestry of his companions is unknown)
Thus it is possible that these men carried slightly different version of the R chromosomal DNA with them to the Americas. This does not take into account the possibility that the Jaredites also left genetic traces in the Americas, although it is not indicated that they did so in the Book of Mormon.
The matrilineal mtDNA Haplogroup X corresponds almost perfectly to the location of Y-Chromosomal Haplogroup R. Also, the specific variety of the mtDNA Haplogroup X that is found in North America is not connected to the small samples taken in eastern Asia and Europe, where cousin branches of the Haplogroup have been found.
Outside of the North American sampling the place with the highest concentration of mtDNA Haplogroup X is amongst the modern Druze, a minority group found in Israel and the surrounding areas, although it is also found amongst Jewish populations, such as those of Libyan extraction.
Amongst modern Jews the two most common Y-Chromosomal Haplogroups are R and J, with J being both most closely associated with the Middle East and amongst Jews claiming to be descended from Aaron. R is most likely not, therefore, the original Haplogroup of Israel himself, but given that variety of R is present in Jewish populations outside of Europe and is somewhat distinct from modern European R examples it is likely an ancient admixture.
I cannot find any scholarly work comparing the specific R varieties find in Jews and that found in the Algonquins of North America, or the a similar comparison for mtDNA Haplogroup X.
To conclude, these two haplogroups, mtDNA X and Y-DNA R, are both sufficiently different from their Eurasian counterparts to suggest that they diverged a considerable time before the present. Furthermore, they likely migrated to the New World together given that they share a geographical expanse in North America, and because they do not share the same geography with other founding Haplogroups it is not reasonable to assume that they came to the Americas in the same migration.
Rather, it is plausible the they arrived as part of an ancient, limited migration from the Old World with potentially significant ties to the ancient Israelites.
Roots and Branches of the Family of Lehi
Lehi was ethnically Jewish, although he himself was thought to be a descendant of Joseph. Ancient Israelites, like the modern Jews, may have had a large and ongoing admixture with converts to their religion and culture, who would have been absorbed into a tribe. While Haplogroup R is associated with Indo-Europeans, there is no reason to believe that Lehi was in fact a direct patriarchal descendent of Israel. The same is true for Ishmael and Zoram.
Furthermore, we do not know if any direct male descendants of these men survived the genocidal wars at the end of the Book of Mormon. For example, what if Lehi's male descendants were wiped out, Zoram was a slave taken as a boy from a non-Jewish tribe, and Ishmael's ancestors were not Jewish? This is just one of many explanations why it is variations of the Indo-European Haplogroup R rather than the Semitic Haplogroup J that appears in the Americas.
The same goes for mtDNA Haplogroup X. We don't really know the ancestry of Ishmael's wife, or that of the wives of the sons of Ishmael, or Sariah for that matter. Given that Haplogroup X exists amongst the Druze but is less evident amongst modern Jews it is likely that this represents non-Hebrew admixture at some point.
And of course, we have no idea about the genetic ancestry of Mulek or his companions.
Suffice it to say, the Book of Mormon offers a plausible explanation for the presence of both of the wayward Haplogroups in North America.
Diluting Lehi in the Americas
Whatever you choose to believe, the genetic record shows that the descendants of Lehi's migration intermingled a great deal with a people already present in the New World. This of course is never stated in the Book of Mormon, but it is not overruled by it either.
Mormon makes a curious statement:
"I am Mormon, and a pure descendant of Lehi." - 3 Nephi 5:20
Unless the children of Lehi had mixed with other peoples wouldn't they all have been pure descendants of Lehi? Why does Mormon feel the need to state this, unless it set him apart somehow. It may help explain why Mormon was chosen to lead the people of Nephi at such a young age, if as a pure descendant of Lehi he was afforded a special place in society.
Why would the Mulekites make Mosiah their king, if he was just a strange refugee who popped into their neighborhood from the woods with a handful of ragtag followers? Could Mosiah have also been viewed as a more natural authority due to his undiluted Hebrew bloodline?
Could Lehi's family been accepted by a native population upon arrival as a sort of theo-aristocracy? As such, could this be why Laman and Lemuel's jealousy finally reached the breaking point? Was Nephi becoming accepted as pseudo-king in this new land where Lehi's family were accepted as rulers by a local population?
When Nephi left he took nearly half of the Lehite tribe with him, but he makes a curious statement:
"Wherefore, it came to pass that I, Nephi, did take my family, and also Zoram and his family, and Sam, mine elder brother and his family, and Jacob and Joseph, my younger brethren, and also my sisters, and all those who would go with me. And all those who would go with me were those who believed in the warnings and the revelations of God; wherefore, they did hearken unto my words." - 2 Nephi 5:6
I suspect that Nephi was in the process of converting this people they had come to live amongst, and the unlisted people were those whom he had converted prior to leaving. This is why Nephi's family had the population to build a temple, and defend itself in wars. Nephi was leading a hybrid Israelite-Indigenous population that was faithful to the gospel.
However, the bulk of the people remained behind and fell prey to the lies of Laman and Lemuel. Neither Laman nor Lemuel were skilled craftsman, or priests, or indeed teachers of any sort. As such their people remained in a more primitive hunter-gatherer state, which the more industrious but less numerous Nephites would describe as "idleness."
Both nations would mingle blood with the local inhabitants to some extent, but the Nephites would remain with a higher concentration of Israelite blood, as such an apparent racial difference emerged within a few generations. In times the two populations would mingle further and those differences would disappear as noted later in the Book of Mormon. Nonetheless, families which could tie their ancestry directly to the family of Lehi remained somewhat more notable, perhaps even aristocratic.
Believe it, or Not
The Book of Mormon contains many truths about our Savior Jesus Christ which are universally Christian. Even if Joseph Smith made the whole thing up it is still a brilliant work of fiction, which for Christians could strengthen our overall faith, and for non-Christians it includes a story of epic proportions which deserves its place amongst the greatest stories ever written. That is if it not a true historical account revealed by the power of God.
However, we do not consider it to be a literary epic like Lord of the Rings, or a Christian faith promoting work of fiction like the Narnia series. We, as a church, claim that it is a true account of people that really actually existed. As such, our assertion forces other to dismiss it entirely or embrace it entirely. The academic community and other so-called Christians therefore reject it utterly in spite of its literary and philosophical merits.
It is possible to believe it. Genetic studies put us no closer to proving the historicity of the Book of Mormon. Nearly every criticism of the Book of Mormon leads the fair minded to draw the same conclusion: There is no slam dunk evidence that proves the Book of Mormon to be a fraud. Likewise, there is no slam dunk evidence to counter those claims and prove it to be true. Apparently, God wishes us to have enough room for doubt to allow us an authentic choice.
You have grounds to choose to believe in the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon, or to choose not to. The evidence leaves you with the choice.
