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A new review paper has just been published that summarises 36 years of mitochondrial DNA research on Native Americans.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/P ... 250248.pdf

The paper summarises genetic data from 315 research studies, including 23,315 individuals from 322 contemporary populations, and 4,192 individuals associated with 211 archaeological populations.

Middle Eastern mitochondrial DNA has still not been detected.

The Book of Mormon describes three massive New World populations (Jaredites, Mulekites and Lehites) derived from migrations from the Middle East. If these migrations were real, they MUST have spread lots of Middle Eastern DNA into surrounding populations.

The Mormon Church argues, in its own essay, that Lehi’s DNA was diluted away to undetectable levels. They don’t mention that the same vanishing trick must have happened for Jaredite DNA and Mulekite DNA.

Three Middle Eastern migrations give rise to three huge civilisations, and three times their DNA vanishes.

What are the odds?

TEASER: Autosomal DNA research is FAR more conclusive than the mtDNA research. Each of us carry detectible autosomal DNA from around a thousand ancestors from our previous 15 generations. Autosomal DNA of over 1,000 ancient Native Americans from across the two continents, and during the Book of Mormon period, has been examined. Their million detectible ancestors contributed no Middle Eastern DNA. This will be the subject of an upcoming paper in Dialogue. Stay tuned.

simon southerton wrote: ↑

Fri Aug 21, 2026 10:27 pm

Their million detectible ancestors contributed no Middle Eastern DNA.

That sums it up. It's a wrap; just like there's no king's name in the hieroglyphic characters of Facsimile No. 3. Not a chance in Mormon hell or heaven which is one in the same place!

Stupid Mormons!

I could go on and on, but I'll spare ya all!

I think there is another problem here when you put Perego, Peterson, and some of the newer arguments about Lamanite identity together.

Perego’s answer has generally been that a small Lehite genetic contribution could disappear through dilution, drift, bottlenecks, lineage loss, etc. All of those things can happen. What bothers me is that they are usually presented as possibilities for why we shouldn't expect to find anything, rather than as an actual demographic model showing that this is what we "should" expect.

Then there is the Afore. In <a href="https://archive.timesandseasons.org/200 ... /">2004</a>, Peterson argued that intermarriage could eventually make virtually every Native American genealogically descended from people living here in 600 BC. And in <a href="https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeters ... l">2025</a>, he was still saying that “most if not all native Americans” descend from the groups described in the Book of Mormon.

I actually understand why Peterson doesn't want to give that up. This isn't just some embarrassing old teaching that can quietly be retired. The identification of Native Americans with the Lamanite remnant sits pretty deep in traditional Mormon theology—the Abrahamic covenant, the gathering of Israel, and the Book of Mormon's own stated purpose of bringing the remnant of Israel to a knowledge of the covenants made with their fathers.

That is why I find John Cochran's recent <a href="https://interpreterfoundation.org/journ ... “Estranged No More: Covenant and a Reclaimed Identity of the Lamanites”</a> interesting. Cochran moves toward understanding “Lamanite” primarily as a covenantal identity that can transcend ancestry.

But that seems backwards historically. Joseph Smith didn't appear to think Native Americans inherited Lamanite covenant promises despite uncertain ancestry. He thought they inherited those promises "because they were literally the remnant of Israel".

Apparently Joseph didn't anticipate that the Israelite ancestry would eventually become genetically invisible and that we would then need to preserve the covenant while progressively detaching it from descent.

So we seem to have several different ways of preserving pieces of the traditional claim:

Perego explains why the DNA can't be found.

Peterson hangs onto widespread Book of Mormon descent anyway.

Cochran provides a way to preserve “Lamanite” and its covenant significance even if ancestry becomes increasingly difficult to defend.

What I would really like to see is Peterson's claim put into Perego's genetics.

By that I mean actually specify the founding population, how much it intermarries with existing populations, how quickly its descendants spread geographically, and what happens over 2,500 years. If Peterson is right that Book of Mormon peoples became ancestors of most or virtually all Native Americans, what amount and distribution of West Asian ancestry should we expect to see in ancient genomes at 500 BC, AD 1, AD 500, AD 1000, and so forth?

Then compare that prediction with the ancient DNA we actually have.

If Perego can make the Near Eastern signal disappear under demographic assumptions that also allow Peterson's ancestry to spread across most of the hemisphere, great—that would be an interesting result.

But simply saying "the ancestry spread everywhere genealogically while the DNA disappeared everywhere genetically" isn't a model. It is the proposition that needs to be tested. The everywhere but nowhere hypothesis.