LDS author David G. Calderwood is a recognized authority on ancient north and south american cultures. He has an advanced degree in Art History from University of Texas at Austin. His specialty is Peruvian and Mesoamerican art history. His latest book is Voices From the Dust (2005, Historical Publications, Inc., Austin, Tx 600 pages)

Book of Mormon and DNA Studies

by Michael DeGroote  Mormon Times and Deseret News

February 4, 2014

"Book of Mormon and DNA Studies," posted at LDS.org on Friday, is one of several additions or enhancements to the site's "Gospel Topics" pages in recent months.

"The evidence assembled to date suggests that the majority of Native Americans carry largely Asian DNA," the latest page says, while the Book of Mormon is the record of the migration of three groups to the Americas from the Near East or West Asia hundreds of years before Europeans arrived.

Many Latter-day Saints in the 1800s assumed the Book of Mormon groups were the first people in the region, and some critics have suggested that Near Eastern DNA then should be easy to find among Native Americans today.

"The Book of Mormon itself, however," the LDS.org page says, "does not claim that the peoples it describes were either the predominant or the exclusive inhabitants of the lands they occupied."

"Much as critics and defenders of the Book of Mormon would like to use DNA studies to support their views," the page adds, "the evidence is simply inconclusive. Nothing is known about the DNA of Book of Mormon peoples ... and even if their genetic profile were known, there are sound scientific reasons that it might remain undetected."

The page includes descriptions of principles of DNA studies such as "population bottleneck" and "genetic drift" it says would make it unlikely scientists could detect the DNA of the people described in the Book of Mormon.

The post is about 2,700 words long and includes 28 footnotes and links to papers by a geneticist, a DNA researcher and an anthropologist.

Book of Mormon Archaeological Forum