According to Robert Sepehr's book Species with Amnesia, Haplogroup X is the key to finding the original inhabitants of the lost civilization of Atlantis. A haplogroup is “a genetic population group of people who share a common ancestor on the patrilineal or matrilineal line.” Sepehr claims that 97% of living Native Americans have mitochondrial DNA from Haplogroups A, B, C, and D, while the remaining 3% belong to Haplogroup X. Sepehr states (page 71) that the founders of Native America “included those of Caucasoid ancestry and that the presence of Haplogroup X in North America opens up the possibility of an early migration westward from Europe,” and he believes that this population could have come from the lost civilization of Atlantis that sank into the ocean. He asserts (page 72) that Haplogroup X may have entered the New World in 28,000 B.C. and again in 10,000 B.C., coming in from the Atlantic, noting that this second date corresponds with the sinking of Atlantis according to Plato’s writings. As compelling as the genetic argument might seem, it is not substantial. The discovery of Haplogroup X is interesting to me, but it is highly unlikely that this points straight to the lost peoples of Atlantis. Jennifer Raff and Deborah Bolnick re-evaluate the claim that Haplogroup X could indicate ancient Trans-Atlantic migration to the Americas in a paper published in PaleoAmerica. The basis of their argument is that the migration during the Ice Age was out of Asia, but the gene pool of modern Native Americans is so diverse from contact with other groups, including Europeans. Raff and Bolnick note that the Haplogroup X’s presence in pre-European contact skeletal remains indicates that it was present before European contact with the natives in the New World. So what can explain it then? The fact of the matter is that it is relatively unknown what caused this variation. It is this mystery that leaves so much open for the interpretations of conspiracy theorists like Sepehr. Kennewick Man is mentioned in Raff and Bolnick’s paper. Kennewick man is a prehistoric Paleoamerican man whose remains were discovered on the bank of a river in the state of Washington. He is one of the most complete early skeletons ever found in the New World, dating from 8.9-9 thousand years ago. The first anthropologist to examine this man’s skull noted that he had features of modern-day "Caucasoid" peoples. He even went as far as to reconstruct the skull. The word “Caucasoid,” meaning of or relating to the Caucasian racial classification, misled many people into believing that Kennewick Man was of European descent rather than Native American. This put some backing into the idea that white people had come to the Americas before the natives. Many white supremacists and White Nationalist groups claim that the man was of European origin, similar to Sepehr’s claims. Genetic study confirmed that Kennewick man was closely related to modern Native Americans. Sepher's ideas about a European migration to the Americas during the Ice Age also resonate with the Solutrean Hypothesis. The Solutrean Hypothesis states that people from Europe may have been some of the earliest settlers of the Americas. Solutrean culture was based in what is now France, Spain, and Portugal. The idea that those people came to the the Americas is based on similarities between European Solutrean and Clovis lithic technologies. The idea of people coming in from the Atlantic contradicts the theory that the earliest peoples in America were of Asian descent, coming in from either the Bering land bridge or by maritime travel along the Pacific coast. The idea seems far fetched simply due to dating of artifacts found and other inconsistencies. It is believed that these early peoples came by boat and brought their methods for making stone tools with them, which led to Clovis technology, despite the large gap in time. There is also little evidence for any Solutrean seafaring. The argument of Haplogroup X was addressed by researchers in Brazil whose results showed strong evidence that “haplogroup X, together with the other four main mtDNA haplogroups, was part of the gene pool of a single Native American founding population.” The idea of a white/European colonization of the New World is not strongly supported by evidence. In this case, the lack of evidence is driving both forces of the argument. It is easy to write something off because the proof simply isn’t there, but it is also easier to speculate that way. The appeal of the idea seems to be rooted in prejudice. People of Caucasian descent have commonly been known to take things and claim them as their own, such as the discovery of an already populated North America by the Europeans in 1492. Sepehr’s book embraces the narrative that "whites were here first." His discussion reads less like a claim about Atlantis (as he gives little to no evidence for it), and more like a claim of white superiority.
1 Comment
Colleen Acosta
5/4/2021 08:03:07 pm
I can't imagine why, how I am Haplogroup X1b. My maternal ancestry is German/English, and my paternal ancestry is Spanish/Mexican. No middle eastern ancestors. I'm so curious and there's so little information to be found.
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