Parallel: Migrations to the Americas - Part 6

Previous parts to this post have concerned migrations to the American continents. In this part I discuss the DNA analysis of a migration to Europe and its parallel with the migration of the Lehites to the Americas as described in the Book of Mormon.

As explained in Earliest European Farmers Left Little Genetic Mark On Modern Europe, the first settlers in Europe are believed to have been Paleolithic hunter-gatherers who arrived about 40,000 years ago. About 7,500 years ago people migrated to Europe and brought farming to that area. The question thus arises, are modern Europeans descended from the hunter-gatherers, the farmers, or both?

DNA was obtained from skeletons of early farmers, and the DNA contained "genetic signatures that are extremely rare in modern European populations. Based on this discovery, the researchers conclude that early farmers did not leave much of a genetic mark on modern European populations." In fact, '"Our paper suggests that there is a good possibility that the contribution of early farmers could be close to zero," said Science author Peter Forster from the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, UK.'

The situation given in the Science article is that of two migrations to an area, and the DNA of the later migration not occurring in the people presently living in that area. Since Europe, today, is an agricultural society, the early farmers in the later migration had a significant impact on the culture of Europe, even though they left basically no lasting genetic evidence of their existence. "It's interesting that a potentially minor migration of people into Central Europe had such a huge cultural impact," said Forster."

This is an interesting parallel with the Book of Mormon. Science tells us of early migrations to the Americas from Asia via the Bering Strait. The Book of Mormon tells of a later migration (the Lehites) from the Mediterranean area. However, DNA studies of modern Native Americans show that the Native Americans who were studied have no DNA markers from the Mediterranean area. Apologists for the Book of Mormon have explained that DNA markers from a group of people could die out and thus not be found in modern people (see, for example, Addressing Questions). However, their comments seemed like rationalizations since they could not offer examples from science of DNA markers "dieing out". We now have from science, as explained in the article from Science magazine, a knowledge of two migrations to Europe and a knowledge that the second migration had a great influence in the culture of Europe but the DNA from this later migration does not occur among modern people currently living in Europe. That is, the DNA markers from the second migration have "died" out. This does not "prove" the Book of Mormon to be true. It is merely a parallel between science and the Book of Mormon. One importance to Latter-day Saints of this parallel is an understanding that the DNA of the American Indians is not necessarily a complete map of the migrations to the Americas.