Young-Earth Y Chromosome Clocks Confirm Known Post-Columbian Amerindian Population History and Suggest Pre-Columbian Population Replacement in the Americas

Introduction

The most recent 3,000 years of human history represent an unusual arena to test evolution against young-earth creation (YEC). After all, both sides generally agree on the sequence of events, and the short length of time—just three millennia—fits comfortably within both views. However, the relative timing of these events within each model leads to clear and contrasting predictions for human history under each model. Consequently, the fulfillment of these predictions can lead to revisions in our understanding of the history of civilization.

The field of genetics permits the analysis of these contrasting predictions. Specifically, genetics records changes in population size, as well as the contacts and separations between peoples. Evolution and YEC make different predictions about the relative genetic timing of these types of events for the most recent three millennia.

For example, evolutionists put the beginning of the history of modern Homo sapiens around 250,000 years ago (Karmin et al. 2015), and they reconstruct human history from genetics within this timeframe. Consequently, they expect the last 3,000 years of human history to show up only in the last ~1% of their historical reconstructions. In contrast, when YE creationists reconstruct human history from genetics, they stretch it out over only 4,500 years of post-Flood history (Hardy and Carter 2014; Jeanson 2019). Thus, the most recent 3,000 years represent about two-thirds of this post-Flood history, and YE creationists expect these three millennia to show up in all but the earliest third of their historical reconstructions.

Recent analyses of global Y chromosome data have confirmed the YEC expectations on a global scale (Jeanson 2019). These results have further implied that YEC expectations will be borne out at regional and local scales.

One such region is the Americas. For the pre-Columbian era, ongoing archaeological field work in combination with new technology continues to write and rewrite the history of changes in the population sizes of the Amerindians (e.g., see Canuto et al. 2018; see also de Souza et al. 2018). Furthermore, the population size in the Americas on the eve of the arrival of Columbus remains a hotly contested topic (Denevan 1992; Mann 2005). However, with respect to post-Columbian population history, the details are less disputed (McEvedy and Jones 1978; Sturtevant 1978-2004; Denevan 1992; Mann 2005). Researchers generally agree that the arrival of Columbus triggered a 300- to 400-year population decline. They also agree that this was due to enslavement, slaughter, and introduction of new diseases to which the Amerindians were not resistant. After this decline, and depending on the specific location within
the Americas (e.g., Sturtevant 1978–2004; consider
also the history of the Indian wars in the American
West, e.g., Cozzens 2016), the Amerindian population
recovery began around the 1800s (for some groups, in
the 1900s), and growth generally continued into the
1900s.

Evolutionists view this history within the
context of the overall evolutionary timescale, and
this context makes specific predictions about the
relative timing of these recent events. Specifically,
evolutionary geology-based dates for the first human
archaeological remains have set the overall temporal
framework, and evolutionists have stretched human
Y chromosome differences across this timescale. This
relationship is so tight that evolutionists use the
archaeology-based dates as a “sanity check” (Poznik
et al. 2016, 87 of the Supplementary Information) for
their genetic conclusions.1

Consequently, evolutionists explain the origin
of Amerindians with a migration event across the
Bering Strait and an arrival and expansion in the
Americas about 15,000 years ago (Potter et al. 2018).
Though archaeology has revealed the rise and fall
of many pre-Columbian American civilizations (Coe
and Koontz 2013; Coe and Houston 2015; Moore
2014)—e.g., the Olmec, the Mayan, and the Aztec
and Incan (the fall of the latter to being precipitated
by European incursion)—evolutionists attribute the
origin of all of these people groups ultimately to the
original crossing of the Bering Strait.

Thus, evolutionists put the relative dates for recent
Amerindian events at the very tip of their historical
reconstructions. For example, the recent population
rebound in the 1800s represents an event from
just 100 to 200 years ago. Within the framework of
250,000 years, the events of the 1800s represent the
last 0.08% of evolutionary history.

From a theoretical standpoint, detecting events
in this tiny of a temporal window (i.e., after 99.92%
of human history has elapsed) might seem difficult.
Statistically, this small window would also seem
undetectable. For example, the Y chromosome tree-based
branch length variation among individuals
in the Karmin et al. (2015) study was around 1.5%
(see the standard deviation for the Evo root in
Supplemental Table 11 in Jeanson and Holland
2019). Over a 250,000-year timescale for human
origins, a standard deviation of 1.5% represents
3,750 years. Yet the population recovery in the
Americas happened within the last 200 years. Surely
this recent event would get lost in the statistical
noise associated with evolutionary analyses of the Y
chromosome.

Practically, this concerns have been borne out.
For example, while prior evolutionary studies have
successfully detected a population decline, they have
not detected the 1800s recovery. With respect to the
decline, Poznik et al. (2016) showed that over 75%
of Latin American men did not belong to haplogroup
Q (i.e., the traditional Amerindian haplogroup)
but, rather, to obviously African or European Y
chromosome lineages (see Supplementary Tables 8
and 9 of Poznik et al. (2016)). In addition, Karmin et al.
(2015) inferred population decline in the Amerindian
population (see the Y chromosome “Andes” graph in
their Figure S4A). However, neither study detected
the population recovery in the 1800s.

In contrast, the YEC model makes very different
predictions for the recent history of changes in the
population sizes of the Amerindians. Since YEC
history is only a few thousand years long, the
recent population rebound in the 1800s represents
an event which covers a higher percentage of total
history than under the evolutionary model. Instead
of representing just 0.08% of the total history, these
events represent closer to 4% of the total.

Under the YEC model, theoretical and statistical
considerations predict that the recovery in the 1800s
should be detectable. For example, since the Y
chromosome clock appears to tick every generation
(Jeanson and Holland 2019), it offers, in theory,
single-generation resolution. In addition, for branch
lengths based on the Alpha root (see Supplemental
Table 11 in Jeanson and Holland 2019), the standard
deviation ranges from 1.4% to 4.2%. Over a 4,500-
year post-Flood timescale, a 4.2% uncertainty
represents 189 years; a 1.4% uncertainty, just
63 years. Thus, if the YEC model is correct, and if
sampling of individuals is balanced and robust (i.e.,
see results and discussion of sampling in Jeanson
2019), then YEC timeline-based reconstruction of
Amerindian history should be able to replicate the
known post-Columbian history of the Americas, from
the population decline through the recovery in the
1800s.

Using methods developed previously (Jeanson
2019), I attempted to reconstruct Amerindian history
within the YEC framework to test whether I could
detect the known post-1492 changes in Amerindian
population size.

The results from these YEC-based tests prompted
me to revisit the synthesis of pre-Columbian
archaeology and genetics. In addition, these results
prompted me to revisit some of the pre-Columbian
history purportedly recorded by the Amerindians.

One account in particular, The Red Record: The
Wallam Olum (McCutchen 1993) of the Lenni Lenape
(Delaware) Indians, has been the focus of intense
controversy. Having come to Western attention
through the work of Constantine Rafinesque, this
account of the Delaware origins and migration to
North America has been treated by some as authentic
history (McCutchen 1993). If authentic, it could reveal
novel insights into the history of the Americas before
European arrival. However, in 1995 a PhD thesis was
published arguing “that the Walam Olum is indeed
a hoax and that Rafinesque, the alleged discoverer,
was actually the indisputable forger” (Oestreicher,
ii–iii). I used my Y chromosome reconstructions to
compare my inferred pre-Columbian history to the
history described in the Wallam Olum, in order to
evaluate its reliability.

Materials and Methods

Reconstruction of Amerindian Population History

In mainstream science, Y chromosome haplogroup
Q is treated as the lineage of the indigenous
Americans. From Supplemental Tables 3–5 of
Jeanson (2019), I extracted the Hi and Lo branching
dates for Amerindian individuals in haplogroup Q.
Because Eskimos are mobile across the Arctic, and
because some Eskimo populations still reside in
Asia, I excluded them from my analyses. However, I
retained those individuals in haplogroup Q from the
Cachi, Wichi, and Colla populations—who are the
only non-Eskimo Amerindian populations present in
this particular dataset.

I identified the split date for the peopling of the
Americas as the point at which a permanent break
between Asians and Amerindians/Eskimos occurred
in the Y chromosome tree. Effectively, I extracted the
dates for node 90 and nodes 92 through 101, sorted
them by date from oldest to most recent, and plotted
the resultant curve (Supplemental Table 1).

To confirm that the results I observed were not an
artifact of tree-building methods employed by Karmin
et al. (2015), I repeated this analysis with the dates
based on the previously published neighbor-joining
tree based on the Alpha root (Jeanson 2019; Jeanson
and Holland 2019). Effectively, I extracted the dates
for nodes 421, 422, 486, 497, 501, 504, 505, and 507
from Supplemental Table 8 of Jeanson (2019); sorted
them by date from oldest to most recent; and plotted
the resultant curve (see Supplemental Table 2 of this
paper for details).

Because the Amerindians present in haplogroup
Q in Karmin et al. (2015) were only from northwest
Argentina, I expanded this branch count analysis
to another study. Pinotti et al. (2019) reported a Y
chromosome tree for haplogroup Q individuals from
up and down the Americas. Their tree included both
newly sequenced individuals as part of their study,
as well as previously published sequences. Though
they specifically chose deep-rooting individuals to
sequence, their 20 new sequences were a minority
compared to the 65 previously published sequences
(if we include only non-ancient DNA individuals,
this number is 49, not 65—but 49 still represents the
majority of the sequences).

I noticed that the evolutionary date (13,250 to
16,970 years ago) for the M3 node in haplogroup Q
in Pinotti et al. (2019) overlapped the evolutionary
date (14,390 to 16,480 years ago) for the M3 node in
Karmin et al. (2015) (see Table S7 in for specifics;
the M3 node is also labeled node 91 in Figure S3
in Karmin et al. (2015)). Therefore, I converted the
evolutionary dates to YEC dates using the conversion
factors for the Alpha root in Supplemental Table 4
of Jeanson (2019), which were originally used to
convert data in the Karmin et al. (2015) dataset. See
Supplement Table 3 in this study for details of the
conversion. After converting the dates, I sorted them
by date from oldest to most recent, and plotted the
resultant curve (see Supplemental Table 3).

As per the findings of Jeanson (2019), I used the
branch counting method only for living individuals;
I excluded fossil DNA samples from my analysis.
Furthermore, in online Data S4, the authors reported
the evolutionary dates for some—but not all, in
particularly the most recent—of the nodes in their
trees displayed in Figure S1. I performed my analysis
with only those nodes that had reported dates.

For the Pinotti et al. (2019) study, I defined the
Amerindian split point from Asia as the point at
which the last non-Amerindian lineage separated
from the Amerindian ones. In Figure S1 of Pinotti et
al. (2019), I chose node M930 and not node MPB001
as the split point.

The theoretical basis for this decision followed from
the findings in Jeanson (2019). In Jeanson (2019), I
showed that Y chromosome lineage coalescence was
a function of changes in population size. For example,
within the last ~600 years, the world population has
increased by an order of magnitude (McEvedy and
Jones 1978). Or, looking backward in time to around
A.D. 1400, you could say that the world population
has dropped by an order of magnitude. Conversely,
looking backward in time from the present, many Y
chromosome lineages from living men coalesce around
A.D. 1400. Looking from A.D. 1400 backward even
further in time, the world population does not shrink
by another order of magnitude until pre-1000 B.C., a
time gap of over 2,400 years. Consistent with this,
Y chromosome lineages coalesce much more slowly
in this part of the tree. Thus, for any population
that has not undergone a recent explosive period of
growth, the Y chromosome lineages for individual
members of a population will likely coalesce over a
wide range of dates. Consequently, a sudden split in
a clean break; rather, because of overlapping dates
for lineage coalescence, each resultant population
will still show intermixing of lineages on the Y
chromosome tree for dates before the split. However,
for dates after the actual split happened, lineages
between the two populations will not coalesce apart
from contact between the two groups. Thus, I used
the last coalescence date between Amerindian and
non-Amerindian lineages as the best estimate for the
split date between these groups.

Comparison to Known Amerindian Population History

I compared this population reconstruction to the
known history of Amerindian population sizes in the
Americas. Working backward in time from A.D. 1975,
I reconstructed the known history in steps. First, I
extracted population sizes for Amerindians from
McEvedy and Jones (1978; see 270 and Fig. 4.7 on
280) from A.D. 1975 back to A.D. 1900. This showed
general population growth from A.D. 1900 to A.D. 1975,
punctuated by a downturn around A.D. 1950. Because
my Y chromosome-based reconstructions of population
history were taken from the survivors of this
population downturn, I compared my reconstructions
to the minimum historical population sizes. Thus,
following the practice of Jeanson (2019), I converted
this dynamic population growth curve to a minimum
population growth curve (see Supplemental Table 4).

McEvedy and Jones (1978; see specific discussions
by county in Part 4) and Sturtevant (1978–2004)
indicated that the Amerinidians reached their post-1492 population nadirs pre-1900. Primarily, these
occurred around the 1800s, but the specific period
during the 1800s varied by geographical location.
Hence, I modeled the population nadir as both 1800
and 1900, to reflect this diversity (see Supplemental
Table 4).

For the 1492 population sizes, Denevan (1992)
documents a wide range of estimates. The highest
estimates suggest a massive population collapse
followed the arrival of Columbus; the lowest suggest
hardly any collapse. The methods of Jeanson
(2019) did not necessitate taking a position on this
debate. Again, because my Y chromosome-based
reconstructions of population history were taken from
the survivors of this population downturn, I needed
to compare my reconstructions to the minimum historical population sizes. Effectively, this required
that I draw a line backward from the nadir (i.e.,
somewhere in the 1800s) to the pre-Columbian time
that represented the next lower population size (see
Supplemental Table 4).

Unfortunately, because the dynamics of pre-Columbian population changes are still under
investigation (again, see Canuto et al. 2018 as an
example), this pre-Columbian data point remains
unknown. To represent this uncertainty, I drew a
solid population growth curve line backward from
the 1800s to 1492, and then a dotted line backward
from 1492 (see Supplemental Table 4).

Analysis of Wallam Olum

I used the translated text of the Wallam Olum
in McCutchen (1993) to test whether the stated
events in the Wallam Olum could be correlated
with the history I inferred from my Y chromosome
analysis, as well as with notable pre-Columbian
palaeoclimatological events.

Of all the described events in the Wallam Olum,
I focused on the most significant American ones.
For example, the beginning of the Wallam Olum
described what appeared to be a Creation-Fall-Flood-Ice Age sequence of events (Book 1, stanza
1 through Book 3, stanza 6; McCutchen 1993;
see also Morris and Malone 2014), but these did
not appear to take place in the Americas. Rather,
after this sequence, the Wallam Olum seemed
to describe an event that sounded like a crossing
of the Bering Strait (McCutchen 1993; Book 3,
stanzas 11 through 20). Then, in Books 4 and 5,
the Wallam Olum recorded a long list of successive
leaders—sachems. For some of these sachems, the Wallam Olum briefly described associated and
notable events, some of which provided a basis
for estimating calendar dates for the rule of each
sachem.

The dates for several sachems were estimated
by McCutchen (1993) via correlation of the Wallam
Olum events with recorded events. For example,
the Wallam Olum appeared to describe the initial
arrival of the Delawares at the Atlantic Ocean: “Near
Fulfilled was the sachem in sassafras country. All the
Hunters reached the Sun’s Salt Sea; one more, the
Ocean. Red Arrow was the sachem at the tidewater”
(Book 5, stanzas 25–27; see McCutchen 1993, 124).
Conversely, the Delaware wampum-based records
put the arrival date of the Delaware at the Atlantic
as A.D. 1396 (McCutchen 1993).

As another example, the Wallam Olum also
described two encounters with whites. The first:
“Mistaken was the sachem about what then came.
For at this time from the Dawn Sea the Whites
appeared” (Book 5, stanzas 39–40; see McCutchen
1993, 128). The second: “Watching closely was the
sachem, looking seaward. For at that time from the
north and south, the white people came. Friendly
people, in great ships; who are they?” (Book 5, stanzas
58–60; see McCutchen 1993, 136). McCutchen (1993)
associated the first encounter with Giovanni da
Verrazano’s arrival in A.D. 1524; the second, with the
European arrival around A.D. 1620.

Based on these dates, as well as events in post-Wallam Olum Delaware records, McCutchen (1993)
estimated an average length of sachem rule to be
13.67 years (see pages 18–19 of McCutchen 1993).

From these dated encounters, I performed my own
estimate of the length of sachem rule by extracting
each sequential sachem name from the Wallam
Olum (McCutchen 1993) to an Excel spreadsheet
(Supplemental Table 5). I then counted the number
of sachems who followed Mistaken up until the end
of the Wallam Olum and then divided this number
by 96 years (i.e., A.D. 1620–A.D. 1524 = 96 years). The
result was around half the average length that
McCutchen (1993) estimated for the wider timespan.
I also took the average of these two average lengths
of rule.

Using this range of lengths for sachem rule, I
counted backward in my list of sachem names to the
first sachem (“White Eagle”) who led the apparent
crossing of the Bering Strait, in order to date this
crossing (see Supplemental Table 5).

I also used this range of lengths for sachem rule
to date two additional major events recorded in the Wallam Olum (Supplemental Table 5). The first
appeared to be a major population split followed by
intense conflict. Prior to the arrival in the Americas,
in Book 3, stanza 19, the Wallam Olum described
three major subgroups in the population that crossed
the Bering Strait—“People . . . of the Eagle, of the
Beaver, of the Wolf.” Then in Book 4, stanzas 10
through 14, a major population dispersal seemed to
occur:

After him,
The sachem was
Chilili, the Snow Bird,
Who spoke of the south.

That our people
Would be able
To grow and
Spread there.

Southward went
Chilili;
Eastward went
The Beaver.

To Akolaki, Snake Land,
Southern country,
Tall pine country,
Seashore country.

To Eastern country,
Fishing country,
Mountain country,
Game herd country.

A few stanzas later (Book 4, stanza 17), the Wallam
Olum included the following ominous description:

After Ayamek,
Ten sachems;
Much evil was then
South and eastward.

These ten sachems were unnamed in the Wallam
Olum. However, whatever conflict they oversaw,
they were followed by a sachem named “The Peaceful
One.” In other words, the time of evil appeared to
have been followed by a time of peace. I used the
range of lengths for sachem rule to date this period of
Delaware history (Supplemental Table 5).

The second major event was a taxing episode of
drought (Book 4 stanzas 27 through 30a):

The next sachem was
Shriveled Man;
The next sachem was
Drought.

There was no rain,
No food to gather;
Eastward they went
To where there was water.

Beyond the pass,
In the herd country,
They found food
In the Great Plains.

After Drought,
Exhaustion;
After him was
The Hardened One.

Using the range of lengths for sachem rule, I dated
this period of drought (Supplemental Table 5), and I
compared it to the paleoclimatic records of drought
for the western and Great Plains regions of the US
(Woodhouse and Overpeck 1998). I extracted the
dates for multi-decadal droughts from Figure 10 of
Woodhouse and Overpeck (1998).

McCutchen (1993) identified a gap of two stanzas
in Book V of the Wallam Olum. Given a pattern
of naming zero to two sachems per stanza, it was
possible that my estimated dates were up to four
sachems too recent. To account for this possibility,
I added four units of sachem rule to the respective
minimum calculated dates for each of my analyses
(Supplemental Table 5).

Results

YEC-Based Clocks Successfully Capture Post-Columbian Amerindian History

In Jeanson (2019), the question of the root of the
Y chromosome tree was left open among a range of
possibilities—from the Epsilon root to the Gamma
root, and any roots between these positions. To
avoid prematurely picking a root, I reconstructed
the Amerindian population history based on three
representative root positions: Epsilon, Alpha, and
Gamma. Reconstructions based on each of these
root positions successfully depicted the hallmark
of a population decline—namely, flat-lining in the
population growth curve; and then they depicted the
population recovery in the 1800s (fig. 1).

These results were not an artifact of the tree-building
methods of Karmin et al. (2015). I was able
to reproduce them with data based on the neighbor-joining
tree in Jeanson and Holland (2019) and on the
extracted data in Jeanson (2019) (see Supplemental
Figure 1 in the present paper). Furthermore, these
results were not an artifact of the population sampling
in Karmin et al. (2015). When I reconstructed the
Amerindian population history with the diversity of
individuals in Pinotti et al. (2019), the shape of the
population growth curve was the same, including the
long flat-lining portion (fig. 2). Population recovery in
the 1800s was not present, but this was likely due
to the absence of reported dates for the most recent
nodes depicted in their tree (e.g., see the absence of
reported dates in their Data S4 for nodes CTS5173,
CTS749, and Y26480 from the tree in Figure S1).

YEC-Based Clocks Reveal Insights into Pre-Columbian
History

The successful reproduction of post-Columbian
history prompted me to examine the implications of
my genetic analyses for pre-Columbian history. In all
three reconstructions (fig. 1A–C), the arrival in the
Americas occurred in the A.D. era and was quickly
followed by rapid population growth and dispersion throughout North and South America.

For example, in the Epsilon root-based
reconstruction, the arrival occurred somewhere
between A.D. 265 and A.D. 520, and the population
grew rapidly and dispersed somewhere in the range
of A.D. 500 to A.D. 750 (fig. 1A; table 1). In the Alpha
root-based reconstruction, the arrival occurred
somewhere between A.D. 615 and A.D. 800, and the
population grew rapidly and dispersed somewhere
in the range of A.D. 800 to A.D. 1000 (fig. 1B; table 1).
Finally, in the Gamma root-based reconstruction,
the arrival occurred somewhere between A.D. 800
and A.D. 960, and the population grew rapidly and
dispersed somewhere in the range of A.D. 970 to
A.D. 1130 (fig. 1C; table 1).

Table 1. Dates for major events in Y chromosome-based Amerindian Population History.

Y Chromosome Root	Range of dates for arrival in the Americas	Range of dates for rapid population growth and dispersal
Epsilon	A.D. 265 to A.D. 520	A.D. 500 to A.D. 750
Alpha	A.D. 615 to A.D. 800	A.D. 800 to A.D. 1000
Gamma	A.D. 800 to A.D. 960	A.D. 970 to A.D. 1130

Since Mayan archaeology extends into the B.C.
era and Olmec archaeology deeply into the B.C.
era, the combination of my genetics-based sequence
of events with the archaeology-based sequence
of events suggested that the current Amerindian
male population replaced other pre-Columbian
populations. Intriguingly, the period of rapid
population growth in the Epsilon root-based curve
captures the time period during the collapse at
Teotihuacan (Coe and Koontz 2013). Also, the period
of rapid population growth in the Alpha root-based
curve captures the time period during the collapse
in the Mayan civilization (Coe and Houston 2015).
These correlations suggested potential cause-effect
relationships.

These findings made testable predictions by
which they could be further evaluated and refined.
Depending on the degree and level of population
replacement, these results suggested that
Native American lineages more ancient than Y
chromosome haplogroup Q might still persist in the
Americas. Given the high levels of haplogroup Q
still present in Mayan populations (Perez-Benedico
et al. 2016; Söchtig et al. 2015), and given the
post-Columbian population collapse that occurred
up and down the Americas, the more ancient
lineage may have gone extinct. Nevertheless, this
discovery about population replacement suggested
that this ancient lineage might still exist, albeit at
low levels.

These findings also predicted that additional DNA
sequencing efforts from haplogroup Q Amerindians
should reproduce and strengthen these population
growth curve findings—provided that the sampling
strategies avoid the concerns discussed in Jeanson
(2019).

Did Amerindians First Document Pre-Columbian
Population Replacement?

Intriguingly, I discovered that the Wallam Olum
reported a sequence of events similar to the sequence
implied by my Y chromosome reconstructions. First,
I found agreement on the timing of the migration into
the Americas. Based on the list of sachems, from the
time the Delawares crossed the Bering Strait until
A.D. 1620, I estimated a date of their arrival in the
Americas (table 2). Using a range of estimates for
the length of sachem rule, I found that all of them
fell well within the dates I estimated from the Y
chromosome (table 1). In fact, each estimate fell in
line with the reconstructions based on each of the
three Y chromosome root positions.

Second, I found agreement on the presence of
other peoples in the Americas before the most recent
migrants. For example, before describing the crossing
of the Bering Strait, the author of the Wallam Olum
described the fate and movements of enemy peoples in
Asia termed “Snakes.” These Snake people left for the
Americas before the Delawares did (see Book 3, stanzas
8–10). Subsequently in the Americas, the migrants
repeatedly encountered and battled with Snake peoples
(Book 4, stanzas 6-7, 15-16, 44; Book 5, stanzas 15–16,
42–43). Based on my Y chromosome analyses, the
haplogroup Q individuals crossed the Bering Strait and
wiped out other peoples who were here first—perhaps
the peoples at Teotihuacan, if not the Mayan peoples.
Curiously, beginning with the residents at Teotihuacan,
if not with even earlier Mayan peoples, two of the
major deities to receive worship in the Americas were
snakes—a feathered serpent and a war serpent (Coe
and Houston 2015; Coe and Koontz 2013).

Third, I found agreement on the timing of the
population dispersion of the recent migrants
and potential conquest of the original residents
of the Americas. Based on my Y chromosome
reconstructions, after the initial migration from
Central Asia to the Americas, the migrant population
appears to have undergone an episode of massive
population growth and of population dispersion (see
the sharp bend upward in the curves in figs. 1 and
2). As described above, these dispersions may have
been the cause of the collapse of major civilizations in
Mesoamerica. Conversely, I observed that the dates
for Y chromosome-based growth and dispersion (see
figs. 1 and 2 as well as discussion above) found a
rough echo in the dates for the population split and
conflict described above in the Wallam Olum (see
tables 1 and 2). As more Y chromosome samples are
obtained and sequenced, and as the split point from
Central Asia is refined, this agreement between the
Y chromosome-based dates and the Wallam Olum-based
dates might increase.

Fourth, I found rough agreement on the size of
the migrant population. For example, the author
of the Wallam Olum recorded a population size of
10,000 people who crossed the Bering Strait (Book
3, stanza 18). From the Y chromosome population
growth curve reconstructions, I estimated the size
of the population at the time of the split from Asian
peoples. Reading the y axis on the right of fig. 1(A–C)
at the first data point in the growth curve revealed a
population size of 500,000 or less males. Converted to
a total population size, this could represent 1,000,000
people. While two orders of magnitude larger than
the size depicted in the Wallam Olum, my genetics-based
estimates were preliminary and based on a
small sample size. As more Amerindian haplogroup
Q samples are obtained, this number might drop.
Either way, both the Wallam Olum and these initial Y
chromosome analyses suggested that the population
that crossed the Bering Strait represented a group
whose size was at least an order of magnitude smaller
than the estimated size of the Mayan populations in
the Late Classic era (Canuto et al. 2018).

I also found correlations between events in the Wallam Olum and paleoclimatic history. The latter
history depicted at least five major multi-decade episodes of drought in the pre-Columbian era. I found that at least two of these episodes overlapped with the estimated dates for the recorded drought in the Wallam Olum (i.e., compare table 2 and table 3).

Table 2. Evaluation of Wallam Olum Timeline and Events.

Average length of sachem rule (years)	Estimated date range for crossing the Bering Strait	Estimated era for population dispersion and major conflict	Estimated date range for drought episode
13.67	A.D. 280 to A.D. 335	A.D. 335 to A.D. 554	A.D. 663 to A.D. 745
10.53	A.D. 588 to A.D. 630	A.D. 630 to A.D. 799	A.D. 883 to A.D. 946
7.38	A.D. 896 to A.D. 926	A.D. 926 to A.D. 1044	A.D. 1103 to A.D. 1147

Table 3. Archaeological/Paleoclimatic dates for major
pre-Columbian droughts in Middle, Western US.

Episode 1	A.D. 250 to A.D. 300
Episode 2	A.D. 720 to A.D. 800
Episode 3	A.D. 930 to A.D. 980
Episode 4	A.D. 1130 to A.D. 180
Episode 5	A.D. 1250 to A.D. 1300

Discussion

Regional History Confirms the YEC Timescale and
Makes Additional Testable Predictions

The regional findings of this study strengthen and
underscore the global findings of Jeanson (2019).
Evolutionists must now try, not only to replicate the
successful capture of known Amerindian history, but
also to explain why the match to the YEC expectations
is so strong. Furthermore, to meet the standards
articulated in this paper—and articulated over the
years by evolutionists themselves, evolutionists
must also publish testable predictions of their own.
For example, they must publish predictions on what
future studies of haplogroup Q Amerindians might
reveal.

Y Chromosome Clock-Based Insights into Pre-Columbian History

The results of this study provide intriguing
windows into the history of the pre-Columbian world.
First, these results are consistent with large pre-Columbian population sizes. For example, in figs. 1
and 2, the flat-lining in the population growth curve
extends well before A.D. 1492. If the post-Columbian
population collapse was small, the flat-lining would
have likely begun only shortly before A.D. 1492, and
then have extended into the nineteenth century.
Instead, at a minimum, the flat-lining precedes
A.D. 1492 by 200 (i.e., fig. 1C) to 800 (i.e., fig. 1A) years.
This is consistent with a massive drop in population
numbers, in which whole villages and large regions of
people—i.e., large chunks of the pre-Columbian family
tree—were lost post-Columbus, but whose family tree
lineages extended many years pre-Columbus, due to
the sheer number of people involved.

Alternatively, these population reconstructions
could be depicting extremely slow population growth
prior to Columbus. However, this scenario would
seem to be inconsistent with the large populations
encountered in Mexico and Peru upon the arrival of
the conquistadors (e.g., see Mann 2005). Furthermore,
slow growth would be in contrast to the history prior
to the flat-lining (i.e., rapid population growth and
dispersal), and post-dating the flat-lining (i.e., 1800s
and 1900s recovery); both of these two eras of history
show significant rates of population growth. If the
flat-lining represented slow growth, it would stand as
an unusual contrast to these times of growth. More
likely, the flat-lining has been caused by massive
population die-off.

Second, the results of this study indicate
widespread population replacement in the Americas
before Columbus. However, the full extent of this
replacement awaits future studies. Specifically,
unbiased (i.e., no pre-screening and selection via Y
chromosome typing for haplogroup Q individuals) Y
chromosome sequencing of Amerindian males will be
necessary to explore whether a lineage more ancient
that haplogroup Q exists in the Americas, and, if it
exists, at what frequency and in which populations
it exists.

Could the post-Columbus population collapse have
selectively wiped out this more ancient population?
Might the haplogroup Q individuals have been more
resistant to the causes of this population collapse?
Until a more ancient lineage is found, these questions
remain difficult to answer. However, the current data
(figs. 1 and 2) based on the replacement (haplogroup
Q) population shows evidence of post-Columbian
population decline, indicating that they also were
affected by the European-induced collapse. Thus, if
there was a selective advantage in being part of the
replacement population, it did not protect against
population collapse—perhaps against extinction, but
not against collapse.

Consequently, these results imply that many
pre-Columbian populations have much closer
genealogical relationships than mainstream science
suggests. For example, given the late pre-Columbian
dates for the Aztec and Incan civilizations, my
Y chromosome data imply that Aztec and Incan
peoples originated from the same A.D.-era source
population. These Y chromosome data also imply
that these Mesoamerican and South American
nations had similar genealogical connections to the
North American nations, such as the Navajo, Sioux,
Delaware, and the like.

An additional ramification of these results touches
the realm of linguistics, a field often used to explore
historical relationships. Given the genealogical
relationships implied by my Y chromosome results,
a reevaluation of current Amerindian linguistic
relationships and timelines seems warranted.
Currently, the Americas have an unusual
distribution of languages (Simons and Fennig 2018a,
2018b, 2018c). The Americas have an average of 12
languages per family (Simons and Fennig 2018b).
Europe has 50% more—18 languages per family
(Simons and Fennig 2018c). The ratio in the Pacific
(41 languages per family), Asia (58 languages per
family), and Africa (153 languages per family) are
all much higher (Simons and Fennig 2018a, 2018b,
2018c). Furthermore, the Americas contain almost
half of the world’s language families (Simons and
Fennig 2018a, 2018b, 2018c). In the past, the number
of Amerindian language families has been the subject
of mainstream scholarly debate (e.g., see Greenberg
1987; see also Campbell 1997). Perhaps this debate
should be revisited; my genetic data offer a new
framework in which to do so.

New Perspective on the Authenticity of the Wallam
Olum

In light of the multiple points of agreement
between the genetic data in this study and the Wallam Olum, and given the palaeoclimatological
agreement with the Wallam Olum, my results
suggest that the Wallam Olum is an authentic
account of Delaware history. If nothing else, my
data suggest that Rafinesque likely did not forge the
document. Surely he could not have written a fake
that anticipated Y chromosome discoveries which
were, at the time of the alleged forgery, still 200
years in the future. Conversely, if the Wallam Olum
is an authentic history, then the agreement with
my Y chromosome results suggests that my genetic
findings do not represent new discoveries; rather,
my genetic findings represent rediscovery of old and
neglected history.

Summary and Conclusion

The successful capture of known Amerindian
history underscores the utility of young-earth Y
chromosome trees as a tool by which to probe the
history of civilization. It also raises new challenges
for the evolutionary model as it must not only
replicate the success of the YEC model, but also
explain why the YEC model has achieved such
strong scientific confirmation. Conversely, the pre-Columbian implications of this study intimate the
possibility that other novel insights into the history
of civilization await more in-depth study of the Y
chromosome tree.

Acknowledgements

Special thanks to Rob Carter, for his helpful
interactions over a period of many months, and
for sharing unpublished data that helped spur the
present analysis. Many thanks as well to the Answers
in Genesis librarian, Walt Stumper, whose diligent
efforts in tracking down sources—even if obscure—made the present paper possible. Discussions with
Steve Austin of the Medieval Warming Period were
also helpful in identifying events to check in the Wallam Olum. Thanks as well to the reviewers, and
to Roger Patterson among others who offered helpful
feedback.

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Supplemental Files

Supplemental Table 1. Karmin-based data points will download when link is clicked (XLS).

Supplemental Table 2. Neighbor-joining tree-based
data points will download when link is clicked (XLS).

Supplemental Table 3. Pinotti-based data points will download when link is clicked (XLS).

Supplemental Table 4. Derivation of historical
population size data will download when link is clicked (XLS).

Supplemental Table 5. List of New World sachems will download when link is clicked (XLS).

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