Prehistoric Chicken Bones: Possible Evidence for the Book of Mormon?

New Scientist.com reports on a new research article printed in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Chilean archaeologists working at the site of El Arenal-1, on the Arauco Peninsula in south-central Chile, discovered what they thought might be the first prehistoric chicken bones unearthed in the Americas. The group carbon-dated the bones and their DNA was analysed. The 50 chicken bones from at least five individual birds date from between 1321 and 1407 - 100 years or more before the arrival of Europeans. Then the group compared the El Arenal chicken DNA with chicken DNA from archaeological sites in Polynesia, the researchers found an identical match with prehistoric samples from Tonga and American Samoa, and a near identical match from Easter Island. They conclude that the Polynesians had to be the earliest explorers to visit the Americas.

However, the Book of Mormon hints that groups from the Book of Mormon may have settled Polynesia. The article points out that South American DNA does not correspond to Polynesian DNA. But that may mean Nephite and Mulekite DNA has been completely diluted out by other groups. Dilution may also explain why American Indian DNA was found to not correspond with Hebrew DNA.