Be careful how you view this particular 'research.' Any scientific research can show huge variations of data, statistics and figures from the exact same information. Remember, there could be a possible hidden agenda here from this research group, even though they MAY claim to be independent.

I thought the Indians came over on ships from the Middle East. I remember seeing paintings of this when I was a kid. These were huge people, and they looked white, too. Even their children were built like weight lifters.

20,000 years ago. Does that upset anyone's paradigm?

Very interesting. This reflects the same thing I was taught in high school. Maybe those anthropologists and archeologists had it right. Land bridge. well... how about that.

This information also reflects and old saying: the more you know, the more you realize you don't know.

But the Lamanites are descended from Laman and Lemuel. How can this be? What will we tell our Native American friends now?

This scientific study is only the newest piece in a very large puzzle. Next year, if not next month, a newer finding will modify some of it.

Even a well-intended newspaper reporter cannot do justice to the subject. D.M.News, you didn't add to your credibility, publishing this reporter's understanding of the study.

A lot of people, most of whom are Not Smarter Than A Fifth-Grader about genetics, will try to draw huge unwarranted conclusions.

And the study is not actually available -at this time- on the plos.org website, for those who do understand enough to want to read the whole report.

Stand by for a lot of interesting but irrelevant comments.

Let's be specific: Can trace one specific line of their ancestry. Seriously. Misleading headline. Misleading story. BTW -- and the other five percent?

Ha Ha Ha! Funniest thing I've heard for a long time - Hilarious! Thanks for the laugh!

Someone with knowledge, please help readers reconcile post-Fall Bible time line with science. Thanks so much in advance.

This is not the kind of research that the Sorensen people tout when they try to get people to participate in their project. I'm glad that I have not given them my DNA sample, and I'd be willing to bet they have very few samples given by Native Americans. This sounds like research based upon a thesis that should never have been a part of their project.

The Native Americans I know tell me:
"We've ALWAYS been here."

What will we do if a "Scientific Research" "shows that our Lord and Savior was only a regular "joe" with good intentions?. I set my beliefs on faith and testimony and not on "scientific researchs". after all science changes all the time, and a testimony by the Spirit never.

There were two very interesting statements in the report: first, "this is the most comprehensive research ever into the genetic origins of Native Americans."
second, "The scientists studied all available complete mtDNA data for Native Americans, amounting to more than 200 samples."

Assuming the correctness of the two statements, I am led to my own conclusion -- there are not enough data yet to be very sure of anything. How many opinions do the political pollsters collect before they try to predict an election? But the preliminary results are interesting. Stay tuned.

How on earth do they know that?

I have never liked the land bridge explanation. I picture a group that used small boats to skirt the coastline, fish, and hunt marine mammals like sea lions. If they "walked" over some land bridge, I dont think they would have ended up in South America so quickly. If any anthropologist who would like to chime in on this, I would like to hear it.

just because they can be linked to the same small group of ancestors doesn't mean they were in america the whole time

I'm not sure I understand why people want to prove the BofM is wrong due to genetic research. (It is quite possible I do not understand gene study.) If you believe that we came from the same parents (Adam and Eve) , and even though there are several races and peoples, shouldn't we all have the same genes? In my mind God has the power to tweak, change or mutate genes, for his own wise purposes. Otherwise, wouldn't the whole world be the same race, color etc? We have more than one instance in the scriptures that people changed. I ask how did this happen? God has that power.

"Are they sure?" Very funny stuff.
20,000 years ago? I was always told that all humans but eight were drowned about 5000 years ago.

DNA studies would be welcomed by a lot of people around here if they showed links to the Hebrews. The fact that they show no link turns regular guys into DNA experts.
If the outcome of these studies were different, these 'experts' would be using it as proof, in their favor.

200+ samples from a population that is over 1,878,285 in just the US. Add the Canadian and central/south American populations and you show that the study proves nothing and disproves nothing. As for the land bridge, proof from the DNA being related to Asian DNA; What's to prove that Boats were not used? Just because a Group of Asians came to America doesn't prove that other groups didn't.

This is bad research and a whole lot of guessing. When they finally do get a good cross-section of the population then they should start talking about the results and leave the theories out.

The warning flag should have gone up with the 95% number. C'mon, think for a moment. That would mean the researchers would have needed samples from the highest latitudes of Canada to the tip of South America. What happened to the DNA of the Polynesian populations scientist are fairly confident reached the americas. What of the DNA of the Vikings we know settled in North America? My own research shows the founder of the whole native American population to be a tall skinny guy with brown shoes and a well trimmed mustache.

20,000 years? Every time I see these dates I just wonder. They are such irrelevant numbers. The margin of error is huge, the methods used to come up with these numbers are just "hopes" that they are correct (they are less than theories). Only a few science/biology teachers I've had actually were brave enough to argue that these dating methods are actually quite like a guess in the dark.....They are the current method, and very popular today, so nobody wants to appear like they're off.... but if you read textbooks carefully..... it's there - carbon dating, etc. sounds lame!

As one who has plotted taking my canoe with provisions from central Illinois down the rivers to the Mississippi and then up the Missouri to Jackson County; I'd say water transport to North America seems more practical. Why do you need a land bridge at all? Why walk over the land bridge and then get into your boat to travel along the coastal waters to South America? Assuming you left Russia/Alaska land bridge and came south; why in the world would you pass the northwestern states and hike all the way through the deserts of Mexico to get to Chile quickly. It doesn't make sense to me. There's more to the story. Lots more boat transport of peoples than we have evidence of so far.

To always: 8:35 -

I suggest you ask a Native American that question.

Their history has been passed down word-of-mouth for generation after generation.

They have ALWAYS been here.

To fr1nk: Archaeologists have found evidence supporting what you suggest. Stone tools believed to have been used in boat-building were found at Eel Point on San Clemente island off the coast of southern California. A quote from the article “Seafaring clue to first Americans,” Paul Rincon, BBC News online, 2/26/04: “People in North America were voyaging by sea some 8,000 years ago, boosting a theory that some of the continent’s first settlers arrived there by boat.”

If y'all are interested in the subject of DNA testing as it relates to ancestry, go to National Geographic's website and read about their "Deep Ancestry" project. It's very interesting and shows how the ancestry of modern humans is complicated. In other words, those of us w/ European background might not realize that our ancient ancestors migrated through Asia or India to get to Europe.

One of my sons was born with a trait known as "Mongolian blue spots", an indication that we have ancestry from that part of the world. For years I assumed this was an old wive's tale, but am now waiting for DNA results to give me more information.

As for the Lamanites, scientific studies have shown that the American continent was already peopled when Lehi's family arrived here (600 BC), and it should be assumed that this small band of people intermixed with the older settlers. I have never heard it preached that all Native Americans are descendants of that one family.

I love the comments about how science always changes so you can't believe it. Science becomes more accurate over time. Over a given 10 year period (or so) there may be contradictions, but eventually science moves towards truth. Unfortunately faith does not. Faith is rigid and persecutes those who say the earth is round or the universe rotates around the earth. If your faith does not allow for the expansion of knowledge then you need to ponder that. I can believe in the God of Abraham and Jesus and still allow vast amounts of change in my understanding of the natural world. If the BoM is proven, or at least beyond a reasonable doubt, proven to be untrue where do you go?

Actually if you read the article carefully you will find that they have no more proof these ppl were asians then they have that they weren't from the middle east. They even state they cannot connect them with asia and they use the excuse of the DNA being changed over time. If anything this just proves that they have no idea and are just speculating. The landbridge is all theory they have no proof, they just base it on their believe that no one ever built a boat to cross the seas before Columbus.

Did anyone catch the phrase in the article that "the climate improved". Now days, they call that global warming. We should call it "Climate Improvement"

Once both are understood, religious truth and scientific truth are never in conflict. So this study is to be welcomed.

Y'all are nothing but monkeys. The DNA matches perfect!

The 20,000 year timeline is based on the current rate of genetic mutation. If some event in the past caused several mutations to occur in one generation the time could be shortened by several thousand years. Conversly, however, if mutations are happening more quickly now, (for example because of polution) then the time could actually be much longer.

"Why not ask one yourself" --

Oral history isn't worth the paper it's written on.

Ever play that game where you tell a person a story, and then he passes it on to the next person, and so forth down a line of ten people?

The story you get at the end is usually completely different from the original story.

The Viking sagas originated as oral traditions long before they were written down in the 1200s. If you take them as gospel, you have to accept the existence of trolls, ghosts, witches, and all kinds of bizarre things.

Oral traditions may contain fragments of the truth, but overall, they're hardly one step removed from the realm of myth.

The BIBLE says that in the days of PELEG, the land masses were one, and divided. There could not have been a LAND BRIDGE 20,000 years ago, since the land was solid at that point.

Consider this, IF the LORD moved a mountain over night, would the geologist say the mountain was JUST put there, or would the mountain seem to the geologist to have been there for millions of years. Assuming the mountain ACTUALLY was moved by the LORD, the day before? Of course, the mountain would look to have ALWAYS been in the current spot.

Science cannot be trusted to tell us all things that we need to accept on faith. Science can be fooled by God.

What does this study have anything to do with when those ancestors arrived in the New World and how does it prove anything about the timing of the arrival??? And what about Noah's flood? There seems to be some serious dating errors in science and/or possibly in interpreting religious records. But then again... the earth is flat, global warming is a real threat, Pluto is a moon, and UFOs don't exist. It's amazing how much we think we know through science and really we are clueless. I'm all for research, but let's not get carried away into thinking that current scientific theory is absolute fact/truth.

Right on Global Warming....Right on! I like that..."Climate Improvement". Eat that one up Al Gore.

The dating methods are flawed and everyone knows it.
They just can't seem to get it into their heads.

"...sometimes God lets things happen to...confuse us."

Not *my* God.

"God is not a man, that he should lie...." (Numbers 23:19.)

"...people [want to] justify ... their scientific beliefs."

Heaven forbid!

Scientists couldn't even take my DNA in the present, and tell you where I have lived or where I have been in just my life--by plane, land, or boat--let alone if I had lived 20,000 years ago. But possibly six women from Asia did make it to the America's by land long ago, and had many ancestors. DNA doesn't even say those women were born in Asia. It says their parents were Asian, but they could have been born in America, or the Netherlands for all we know. What really does this prove or disprove?

I still don't see how true science and true religion can't co-exist as one truth.

We know from both that the Earth's land was once one large mass. Both show that people were found all over the land, at all different times. We know from both that all people originally descended from two parents. Both know the Earth has undergone great changes. Both know that people have had varying levels of technology, but neither documents when the first boat was used. Time discrepancy? Science tracks current natural processes, not accounting for how the creation may have followed a more sped up time frame.

thats great

"ONE MAJOR PROBLEM" -- The more reasonable interpretation of the passage in the Bible that says the lands were divided in the time of Peleg is that it refers to the land being parceled out and divided among different tribes -- basically a real estate transaction, not a physical separation of the continents.

If "science can be fooled by God," then God sounds like kind of a jerk.

Hmmm... I enjoy studies, but if I've learned one thing from the media, it is to check their sources. I'll have to get my hands on that study some time the future to see what they really said. Several years ago I read articles on the report for WMD from Iraq, then I read the dozens of pages those reports were based on. Realize, please that those dozens of pages were a summary. I immediately lost faith in those media reports. Then I read the hundreds of pages that those dozens were a summary of. After that, I said to myself, good grief, the summary doesn't do it justice. I wondered why they created the summary, then I realized that it was because our elected representatives have probably never ready anything longer than a couple of dozen pages and wouldn't have known what to do with the full report. In conclusion, when I read an article like this, I say to myself, "Cool there's a study I should check out, it sounds interesting." The rest is just garbage.

It's hard to be an NDN, everyone else trying to define you in one form or another , then try being a parent and explain all the labels which really mean nothing as it is what is inside that counts!

Radio carbon dating is quite accurate for the time frames involved. It is not complicated. All living things "breathe" air which has a certain percentage of carbon 14. Carbon 14 is radioactive. When something dies it stops taking in carbon 14, and the carbon 14 they took in decays at a well established rate. So when you compare the ratio of C12 to C14 you can with great accuracy tell when that thing died.

Oh no!
Now Thomas is quoting scripture to us!

You are greatly mistaken if you think that humans lived in the time when Pangaea existed 250000000 years ago. Hominids in their most primitive form were not around until 5000000 years ago.

When the climate im- proved and the ice melted, people "found an open, free corridor to go to America," he said.

Wait a minute, I thought when the ice melted the land bridge would be covered with water. What going on here? My faith in the science that only gets more accurate is shaken.

fr1nk,

Don't try and explain science to naysayers. They won't believe it unless they get cancer and want medical treatment.

fr1nk,

thank you for this. it seems nobody knows how carbon dating actually works.
carbon dating is very accurate when used correctly.

thank you!

The tower of Babel didn't happen either I guess, because supposedly all the different lineages sprung from that event. I guess I shouldn't believe in anything, when we die were worm food. When I have someone flirt with me, I should act on it, screw the consequences. I am just an animal, right? Why have ethics if that's all we are, just act out our animal urges. Nah, I would rather believe in God, I have lived both ways and have more peace believing in something then living with no principals. What is the worst thing that can happen by living the gospel? I have the love and respect of my wife and I die with hope and a clean conscience. I will take respect with love and a side order of hope please.

*** "If "science can be fooled by God," then God sounds like kind of a jerk." ***

I don't know that that alone makes God a jerk, but I've always felt that the idea that God would condemn to eternal hellfire those hundreds of millions (or billions) of otherwise decent people who for one reason or another don't believe in a story the evidence and logic of which is severely lacking would make him a jerk.

If that's the kind of God that He is then I'd prefer not to spend eternity with him, anyway.

Not that I think that is the case. For my sake.