"Genetic evidence published today in Nature is the first to show that all Native Americans can trace their ancestry back to a single migration event that happened at the tail-end of the last Ice Age. The evidence—gleaned from the full genomic profile of the six-week-old girl and the partial genomic remains of another infant—suggests the continent’s first settlers arrived in a single migratory wave around 20,900 years ago. But this population then split into two groups—one group that would go on to become the ancestors of all Native North Americans, and another that would venture no further than Alaska—a previously unknown population of ancient North Americans now dubbed the “Ancient Beringians.”

https://gizmodo.com/discovery-of-unknown-ancient-population-changes-our-und-1821739886

Fascinating article!

Yeah, I thought it was too, and pretty well slams the door shut (again) on Book of Mormon doctrine regarding the expeditions of Lehi, Bro of Jared, Mulek and all the rest. Not that it will do any good.

God is testing the faith of the saints real hard. If they accept the science, Stan wins.

Yeah, I read that article on Google News and thought about mentioning it here.

As is my wont, I followed the links to see if the report was from reputable sources. The story looks credible: Cambridge professor, article in Nature, etc.

The good ship Clovis First has been under fire for a long time and is listing.

In my opinion, that ship fully sunk several years ago. But I agree, very interesting find.

That's my belief too. I just hesitate to stake out too strong a position given that I don't have background in the field.

It'll be fun to see how they refine the hypotheses about the separation of the groups and the movements south and then north again. I also wonder if there really were no other (small) groups who made the trip to the Americas that perhaps died out--you know, like the Viking colonies, perhaps a small group or two of Polynesians along the coast of South America, the Jaredites. . .

I love it!!!!!!!

But... they separated into two groups! OMG! It must just be that Joseph had the time from wrong! The BOM actually took place 20,000 years ago!

This is also one more piece of evidence that refutes the creationist argument that the earth is merely 6,000 years old.

Has anyone read the book "Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind" by Yuval Noah Harari? It is a very interesting evolutionary account of human history. It beats the hell out of reading the Bible or the Myth of Joseph Smith known as the BoM.

I spent years as a police officer in Barrow, Alaska. Every summer big tour groups from both China and Japan come to tour the tundra. A local drunk, one of many, would usually accost these groups on a daily basis.

He was harmless though. He'd go up to them and kinda walk in a circle around them. Really looking them over. These people would freeze in their tracks.

Finally he'd go up to one of them and put his arm around their shoulder and loudly say "You look just like me!!! After that he turn to another and say "I think you're my cousin!"

The resemblance is almost uncanny sometimes. Yet just go a few hundred miles south into Athabaskan Indian in Interior Alaska and the similarities stop.

A good friend of mine who is a Tlingit from southeast Alaska had this to say about why the Inupiat Eskimos stayed on the north slope. His direct quote was "They were too stupid to keep going."
I'd say there was probably some truth to that.

Here is NPR's take on the story:

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/01/03/575326694/ancient-human-remains-document-migration-from-asia-to-america

Note that the group that stayed behind in what is now Alaska is not considered to be the ancestors of the Eskimos. That said, this sure puts more holes in Joseph Smith's stories about the settling of the Americas.

I can't wait for the apologists to grasp on to the "split into two groups"---see Nephites & Lamanites. Timelines--meh!

Desperate times call for desperate measures.