The LDS Church has changed a word in the introduction in The Book of Mormon that alters the description of Lamanites, one of several ancient American civilizations chronicled in LDS scripture.

The introduction, written by Bruce R. McConkie in 1981, will be changed to say that Lamanites are "among the ancestors" of American Indians, instead of McConkie's version, which refers to them as the "principal ancestors" of American Indians.

"After thousands of years, all were destroyed except the Lamanites, and they are the principal ancestors of the American Indians," McConkie's version reads.

The new version says, "After thousands of years, all were destroyed except the Lamanites, and they are among the ancestors of the American Indians."

"The current introduction page in the Book of Mormon was not part of the original text translated by Joseph Smith Jr.," said Mark Tuttle, a church spokesman, in a Salt Lake Tribune article published on Thursday.

"The introduction was written and published at the same time additional materials including footnotes and cross references were added in 1981. A one-word change was made to the introduction in the latest edition of the Book of Mormon published by Doubleday. That change takes into account details of Book of Mormon demography which are not known. The change will be included in the next edition of the Book of Mormon printed by the church."

Disputes over the historical accuracy of the Book of Mormon have raged since the book was first published in the early 19th century. Those disputes have been fueled by recent DNA research showing that principal lines of American Indian ancestry link to Asia, presumably by way of the Bering Strait. Mormon tradition has long held that at least some of the Indians' ancestors migrated across oceans from the Middle East.

The Tribune quoted Simon Southerton, a former Mormon and author of "Losing a Lost Tribe: Native Americans, DNA and the Mormon Church," as saying that the textual change represents a concession by the church "that mainstream scientific theories about the colonization of the Americas have significant elements of truth in them."