Brothers and Sisters:
This breaking news article is of interest to my fellow members in the Church of JESUS CHRIST of Latter-day Saints, as it helps to verify the lineage of Lamanites, as described in the BOOK OF MORMON.
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INDIAN DNA LINKS TO SIX "FOUNDING MOTHERS"
By MALCOLM RITTER
Associated Press Science Writer
Nearly all of today's American Indians in North, Central, and South America can trace part of their ancestry to six women whose descendants immigrated around twenty thousand years ago, a DNA study suggests.
Those women left a particular DNA legacy that persists to today in about about ninety-five percent of American Indians, researchers said.
The finding does not mean that only these six women gave rise to the migrants who crossed into North America from Asia in the initial populating of the continent, said study co-author Ugo Perego.
The women lived between eighteen thousand and twenty-one thousand years ago, though not necessarily at exactly the same time, he said.
The work was published this week by the journal, PLoS One.
Perego is from the Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation in Salt Lake City, Utah, and the University of Pavia in Italy.
The work confirms previous indications of the six maternal lineages, he said.
But an expert unconnected with the study said the findings left some questions unanswered.
Perego and his colleagues traced the history of a particular kind of DNA that represents just a tiny fraction of the human genetic material, and reflects only a piece of a person's ancestry.
This DNA is found in the mitochondria, the power plants of cells.
Unlike the DNA found in the nucleus, mitochondrial DNA is passed along only by the mother.
So it follows a lineage that connects a person to his or her mother, then the mother's mother, and so on.
The researchers created a "family tree" that traces the different mitochondrial DNA lineages found in today's American Indians.
By noting mutations in each branch and applying a formula for how often such mutations arise, they calculated how old each branch was.
That indicated when each branch arose in a single woman.
The six "founding mothers" apparently did not live in Asia because the DNA signatures they left behind aren't found there, Perego said.
They probably lived in Beringia, the now submerged land bridge that stetched to North America, he said.
Connie Mulligan of the University of Florida, an anthropolgist who studies the colonization of the Americas but didn't participate in the new work, said it's not surprising to trace the mitochondrial DNA to six women.
"It's an okay number to start with right now," but further work may change it slightly, she said.
That finding doesn't answer the bigger questions of where those women lived, or of how many people left Beringia to colonize the Americas, she said Thursday.
The estimate for when the women lived is open to question because it's not clear whether the researchers properly accounted for differing mutation rates in mitochondrial DNA, she said.
Further work could change the estimate, "possibly dramatically," she said.
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As is noted, there's a problem with the estimated age, but even the scientists admit that might not be accurate.
In sharing this news report, I took the liberty of amending all erroneous references to "Native American", as it is a Marxist politically correct terminology that I hate, and will not tolerate.
I am a native American, as is anyone else who was born in the United States of America, or its territories and foreign military posts.
Using the term, "Native American", to describe an American Indian, is a denial of the BOOK OF MORMON.
Thank you.
John Robert "SAIGON" Mallernee, KB3KWS
Official Bard of Clan Henderson
Armed Forces Retirement Home
Washington, D.C. 20011-8400
NOTE: "My unpopular and controversial personal opinions are independent of my Scottish clan."
This breaking news article is of interest to my fellow members in the Church of JESUS CHRIST of Latter-day Saints, as it helps to verify the lineage of Lamanites, as described in the BOOK OF MORMON.
**************
**************
INDIAN DNA LINKS TO SIX "FOUNDING MOTHERS"
By MALCOLM RITTER
Associated Press Science Writer
Nearly all of today's American Indians in North, Central, and South America can trace part of their ancestry to six women whose descendants immigrated around twenty thousand years ago, a DNA study suggests.
Those women left a particular DNA legacy that persists to today in about about ninety-five percent of American Indians, researchers said.
The finding does not mean that only these six women gave rise to the migrants who crossed into North America from Asia in the initial populating of the continent, said study co-author Ugo Perego.
The women lived between eighteen thousand and twenty-one thousand years ago, though not necessarily at exactly the same time, he said.
The work was published this week by the journal, PLoS One.
Perego is from the Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation in Salt Lake City, Utah, and the University of Pavia in Italy.
The work confirms previous indications of the six maternal lineages, he said.
But an expert unconnected with the study said the findings left some questions unanswered.
Perego and his colleagues traced the history of a particular kind of DNA that represents just a tiny fraction of the human genetic material, and reflects only a piece of a person's ancestry.
This DNA is found in the mitochondria, the power plants of cells.
Unlike the DNA found in the nucleus, mitochondrial DNA is passed along only by the mother.
So it follows a lineage that connects a person to his or her mother, then the mother's mother, and so on.
The researchers created a "family tree" that traces the different mitochondrial DNA lineages found in today's American Indians.
By noting mutations in each branch and applying a formula for how often such mutations arise, they calculated how old each branch was.
That indicated when each branch arose in a single woman.
The six "founding mothers" apparently did not live in Asia because the DNA signatures they left behind aren't found there, Perego said.
They probably lived in Beringia, the now submerged land bridge that stetched to North America, he said.
Connie Mulligan of the University of Florida, an anthropolgist who studies the colonization of the Americas but didn't participate in the new work, said it's not surprising to trace the mitochondrial DNA to six women.
"It's an okay number to start with right now," but further work may change it slightly, she said.
That finding doesn't answer the bigger questions of where those women lived, or of how many people left Beringia to colonize the Americas, she said Thursday.
The estimate for when the women lived is open to question because it's not clear whether the researchers properly accounted for differing mutation rates in mitochondrial DNA, she said.
Further work could change the estimate, "possibly dramatically," she said.
**************
**************
As is noted, there's a problem with the estimated age, but even the scientists admit that might not be accurate.
In sharing this news report, I took the liberty of amending all erroneous references to "Native American", as it is a Marxist politically correct terminology that I hate, and will not tolerate.
I am a native American, as is anyone else who was born in the United States of America, or its territories and foreign military posts.
Using the term, "Native American", to describe an American Indian, is a denial of the BOOK OF MORMON.
Thank you.
John Robert "SAIGON" Mallernee, KB3KWS
Official Bard of Clan Henderson
Armed Forces Retirement Home
Washington, D.C. 20011-8400
NOTE: "My unpopular and controversial personal opinions are independent of my Scottish clan."
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