Tobin wrote: A few things:
1) The Book of Mormon talks about millions of people involved in combat in both the Jaredite and Nephite civilizations. There would have been slightly less people in the Nephite battles, but each civilization would have left a significant number of ruins from that time period, especially in the Jaredite case where no-one was left alive.
2) Most TBM ideas of where the Book of Mormon took place come from of the mistaken impression that the Hill Cumorah is Mormon Hill in New York. Neither Joseph Smith nor Moroni referred to it as such. And it makes little sense that Moroni would have crafted a box to hold the Book of Mormon if there were a cave in the hill with the rest of the Nephite records. He simply could have left the records there.
3) There is little evidence of DNA from the Middle East in NA. There is an X2 variant, but it is much too old have arrived in the time period in question. An explanation is it arrived from Europe 20,000 years ago and centers around the view that the Clovis people shared similar technics for shaping stone flint implements with people in Europe (the Solutrean Hypothesis). I find this likely since the hunting technology used then was unlike the implements used in Asia and it makes little sense that if people mainly came from Asia they would abandon their hunting weapons and adopt all new ones.
3a) That being said, human mitochondrial genetics is in its infancy and is hardly definitive yet. Some of the problems I have with it is the selection of samples and sample sizes in general. It also is a bit too simplistic a view of human immigration patterns since ancient man was actually quite mobile as demonstrated by the Solutrean Hypothesis and should be used along with other evidence.
Now as far as horse bones and steel (iron) swords, I agree that those are what are important. That is exactly what Mormon archeologists should be looking for. I believe definitive examples will be found eventually and when they are that will dramatically change our view of the Americas since so much has been made out of the lack of examples so far. I don't know why critics of Mormonism pick these two items as proof that the Book of Mormon is false since archeological understanding of history is only as good as the latest find and theories often change, but they do.
The Following is From Simon Southerton:
The mitochondrial (maternal) DNA lineages have now been published for 1,164 native Mesoamericans from 30 populations ranging from Central Mexico down to Cost Rica. ...
Only eleven Mesoamericans possessed a mtDNA lineage that didn’t originate in Asia. Of the eleven non-Asian lineages, three were African L lineages, and three were not fully characterised.
The remaining five lineages included two H lineages, one U, one J and one T lineage. These lineages are found in European populations in the following frequencies: lineage H (54%), lineage U (16%), lineage J (10%) and lineage T (8%). By comparing these 5 lineages to the thousands of mtDNA sequences in global databases, exact matches were found for the U and T lineages among individuals from Western Europe, namely Spain, Portugal and Poland. Meanwhile, the most abundant female lineages in Middle Eastern populations are lineage K (32%) followed by lineage H (26%). Given that African lineages were detected and the exact matches with Portuguese lineages, it looks very likely that these “other” lineages originated from post Columbus admixture with African and European colonists. Similar levels of admixture have been observed in several other Native American populations, particularly in eastern North America, which was impacted more heavily after first contact.
Scientists are also able to determine when this admixture occurred. That is, they can estimate approximately how many years ago the European or African DNA entered a Native American’s family tree. They do this using high throughput DNA technology to track the inheritance of nuclear DNA markers. ...
Were there "others" in the Promised land among the Nephites according to the Book of Mormon???
Let Us Go to 1st Nephi Chapter 18, Verse 25:
1 Nephi 18:25:
[25] And it came to pass that we did find upon the land of promise, as we journeyed in the wilderness, that there were beasts in the forests of every kind, both the cow and the ox, and the ass and the horse, and the goat and the wild goat, and all manner of wild animals, which were for the use of men. And we did find all manner of ore, both of gold, and of silver, and of copper.
If there were "others" within the Promised Land when Lehi and his family first arrived in the Promised Land, why didn't Nephi mentioned about them in this Passage???
Let Us Now Go to Jacob Chapter Seven, verse 26:
Jacob 7:26:
[26] And it came to pass that I, Jacob, began to be old; and the record of this people being kept on the other plates of Nephi, wherefore, I conclude this record, declaring that I have written according to the best of my knowledge, by saying that the time passed away with us, and also our lives passed away like as it were unto us a dream, we being a lonesome and a solemn people, wanderers, cast out from Jerusalem, born in tribulation, in a wilderness, and hated of our brethren, which caused wars and contentions; wherefore, we did mourn out our days.
We can see by comparing 1st Nephi Chapter 18, verse 25 with Jacob Chapter Seven, verse 26 that there were Not "others" in the Promised land when Lehi and his family first arrived there. The Prophet Jacob describes the people of Nephi as "being a lonesome and a solemn people, wanderers, cast out from Jerusalem" towards the end of his life. The Prophet Jacob then goes on describing that the people of Nephi, his people, were "hated of our brethren," which means that all of the Lamanites were their fellow Israelite brethren. We must conclude in light of the Passages of 1st Nephi Chapter 18, verse 25 with Jacob Chapter Seven, verse 26 that the Nephites were Not among "others" within the Promised land.
"And I've said it before, you want to know what Joseph Smith looked like in Nauvoo, just look at Trump." - Fence Sitter