By Phyllis Carol Olive
Depending only on what little DNA evidence could be gleaned from the remains of America’s
prehistoric residents, theories over the past century had all Native American DNA falling within four haplogroups A, B, C, and D. Three of the four haplogroups, A, C, and D are found primarily in Asia, with the B haplogroup found chiefly in southeast Asia.

With no new evidence to suggest otherwise, the theory that America was peopled primarily from migrating tribes from Asia was perpetuated until recently, when a rare genetic DNA link called haplogroup X, which is found primarily in Europe, was discovered among the North American tribes. 

After the scattering of Israel and Judah, the X founding spread westward across Europe where it can still be found in rather high frequencies among the Ashkenazi (European) Jews. Crossing over to America, the X haplogroup shows up in frequencies as high as 10-40% in several modern Algonquin tribes, particularly the Ojibway.

It is as high as 15% among the Iroquois and Sioux. The Nuu-Chah-Nulth in the northwest carry the marker at a frequency of 11-13%, the Navajo in northeastern Arizona, southeastern Utah and northwestern New Mexico at 7%, while the Yakima of Washington carry it at frequencies of 5%. Interestingly, the remains of Washington’s “Kennewick Man” exhibits evidence of the X mtDNA haplogroup. 

Thus, for the first time, new theories began to arise which had some of the Native Americans arriving via an Atlantic crossing rather than a Pacific. Yet, when a study published in the American Journal of Human Genetics in 2001 noted that haplogroup X had been discovered among a small group of people living in the Gobi Desert in southern Siberia, researchers began to wonder if they had been premature in giving scientific credence to a possible European source for the haplogroup X found among North American native populations.

Continuing research resolved the matter in 2003 when it was discovered that the X haplogroup found in Siberia was an admixture from relatively recent gene flow from Europe or West Asia. But of added importance, researchers were now firmly convinced that the Near East was the geographical place of origin for the haplogroup X, a place which incorporates the Palestinian territories, Mesopotamia, the Caucasus, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Cyprus, and Israel—right where the Book of Mormon places the colonies of Lehi and Mulek before their migration to the promised land.

Other interesting facts were also discovered. For instance, after analyzing dating material they discovered that two separate diffusions of the X haplogroup entered North America, one during pre-glacial times, and one after. While the time-line currently in vogue among geologists is hopelessly at odds with the biblical time-line, we can reconcile one diffusion of people carrying the X marker into America with the Jaredites who arrived from the regions north of Babylon, and the other with the Nephites who arrived from Jerusalem.

Although several tribes across the country are known to carry the X haplogroup, it is found more frequently in the regions around the Great Lakes than elsewhere in North America. This area is dominated by the Algonquin speaking people and the Iroquois who extended from the western end of the Great Lakes to Maine. Yet, interestingly, by studying the position of the X haplogroup found among Native Americans on the genetic tree, it was discovered that an early split took place at the very beginning of the expansion and spread from the Near East.

It seems that one complete Native American X sequence was found among the southwestern Navajo, and the other among the tribes in Ontario who developed into the Ojibway, the two believed to have diverged from a common point of origin after their common ancestor was already settled in America.
The wide distribution of the X haplogroup around the Great Lakes eastward to Maine, and westward to Washington State and inland to Arizona and the central Plains, suggests a wide initial dispersion of the founding tribes, with its origins thought by many to be linked to the New York Iroquois. 

As to their ties to the Book of Mormon, in 1987, Fiedel argued that the Point Peninsula people of prehistoric New York (currently thought to be the progenitors of the Iroquois) were those who spread the Algonquin speaking people into the northern Great Lakes region from their point of origin in southern Ontario. This is right where thousands of Point Peninsula/Nephites migrated after moving northward from western New York in the century before Christ, a fact fully established by both the archaeological record and the scriptures. After spending many years among the Ojibway in the land northward, and noting the many Hebrew traditions among them, William Warren was totally convinced that the Ojibway were either descendants of the lost tribes of Israel, or at the very least had had a close communion with them.

Genes were carried further south when some of the founding tribes in southwestern New York made their way along the Allegheny River into Ohio where they became known as the Cherokee, an offshoot branch of the Iroquois. Their ties to the Ohio Hopewell civilization of 100 B.C.-350 A.D.,was discovered by Malhji, Ripan, Shultz, and Smith in 2001, who, after a treatment of the DNA lineages of the northeastern tribes concluded that the ancestors of the Cherokee were the builders of the
Hopewell earth-mounds scattered throughout the Ohio Valley some 2000 years ago.

While a modern Cherokee carries a mixed genetic history today, the rare, pure-blooded Cherokee carries basically the X or C haplogroup through the mother’s line. The X can be tied to the Near Eastern populations, while researchers suggest they picked up the C haplogroup from the more archaic populations already living in the area when they arrived. 

While the X haplogroup is found through the mothers’s line, a study of the Cherokee’s paternal line shows they are genetically tied to the Ashkenazi Jews, with a few revealed to be Levites. Although the historical record is limited, there is a consensus of cultural, linguistic, and genetic evidence that the Ashkenazi Jews originated in the Middle East and that the Ashkenazi Jews from Europe, the Sephardic Jews from Africa, the Cohanim, a Levite priestly class through Aaron, and the Israelites shared the same genetic signature originating in the Middle East 2000 years before the Jewish Diaspora.

Not surprisingly, James Adair, who came to live in America before the colonies were formed and spent 33 years among the Cherokee, documenting their customs, civil policies, history, language, religion, priests, military customs, agricultures, marriage and funeral rites and their temperaments and manners, found them all to have close affinities with the customs and traits of the Hebrews.

In fact, the cultural evidence of a Hebrew presence in the native North American tribes is so overwhelming that notwithstanding many of the western tribes have roots with ties to Asia, it can no longer be doubted that many Native Americans have ties which link them to the Near East as well—just as the Book of Mormon claims.