the Book of Ether, could be ancestors to some Native Americans . Some writers theorized that American Indians received their Asiatic genetic heritage from the Jaredites . Nephites and Lamanites in the Book of Mormon According to the Book of Mormon, the terms "Nephites" and "Lamanites" actually lose their original significance pursuant to the visitation of Jesus Christ to the American continent after his resurrection; his coming ushered in a period of peace in which the two conflicting nations merged into one, in which "[t]here were no robbers, nor murderers, neither were there Lamanites, nor any manner of -ites; but they were in one, the children of Christ, and heirs to the kingdom of God." (). Later on in the narrative, as members of the unified nation fell away from the faith, the term "Lamanite" comes to signify wickedness rather than blood heritage, whereas "Nephite" came to signify a follower of Christ; both terms alluded to the previous nations' predominant moral tendencies. Eventually, however, even the righteous "Nephites" grew proud and fell into wickedness more severe than that of those termed Lamanites. The Nephites battled with the Lamanites until around AD 400, near the close of the Book of Mormon, the Nephites were annihilated by the Lamanites. The nation of the Lamanites is understood to have continued on beyond the close of the Book of Mormon. Response to the genetic challenge from Book of Mormon defenders Book of Mormon population models Defenders of the Book of Mormon have made arguments that center on the idea that the Book of Mormon peoples from the Middle East formed only a small portion of the population of the Americas, and that their genetic heritage may have been diluted beyond what can now be detected. The Limited Geography Model of the Book of Mormon supports this position. This geographical and population model was formally published in an official LDS Church magazine, The Ensign, in a two-part series published in September and October 1984. Critics of the Limited Geography Model say that the Book of Mormon does not make clear reference to any other group of people that may have existed in the Americas alongside Book of Mormon people that would account for the dilution of the Middle Eastern genetic markers in the New World. Therefore, it is argued, a "traditional reading" of the Book of Mormon suggests that "most, if not all" of the