Native American DNA

[Broken Smoke]

I saw an add for getting your DNA tested to see if you really have the Native American heritage you think you do. This is a great idea. However, I'm not looking at it from a family point of view. DNA testing could be used to either prove or disprove who Native peoples really are and where they came from.
There are so many stories that seem far fetched to us. The Prince Madoc of Wales story comes to mind. Did a group of Welsh people come over to America and wind up contributing to the bloodlines of the Mandans? And what about the story about one group being a lost tribe of Israel? What other nationalities would come out from DNA testing?
We know that Micmac ties have been found to support the L'Anse aux Meadows settlement in Newfoundland. When they went back to Europe, they took at least one Micmac with them. Not really a surprise, but it validates what those families said all along.
It's sad that most of the Mandans were wiped out because of small pox. I am on the fence about wanting to know the answer, and opening burials to get the DNA to test. It seems to be the only way to find out. If done with the proper respect and re-burial, I would agree to it. But I am not of those peoples, so it is not for me to tell another group what is right or wrong about their religious beliefs. I would expect the same respect from them by not telling me what my beliefs are or should be. No matter how smart you might think you are, one size doesn't fit all.:no: Thoughts?

 

[Nashitheki]

I remember reading a book about Prince Madoc and his people landing at the Gulf of Mexico, traveling up the Misssissippi, settling in Tennessee where the Siouan Yuchi began to marry into this Welsh colony. If memory serves me correctly, other Indians attacked and defeated the descendants of Madoc's people and those who fled went on to become the Mandan. Early explorers who came upon the Mandan describe many of them having lighter hair and eyes than the other neighboring tribes. Their culture hero known as the First Man was thought by others to be Prince Madoc.

 

[Nashitheki]

Painted from life by George Catlin is 'Mint', a young Mandan woman who had very light streaks in her hair.

 

[Nashitheki]

Matatope, Mandan chief, painted from life by artist Karl Bodmer

 

[Broken Smoke]

Cool stuff - thanks! I recognize Mint.
We know that people were traveling all over the place thousands of years ago. The recent discovery of the Anglo looking mummies in China who were buried wearing cloth made from sheep of a European ancestry is proof of this.

 

[Nashitheki]

I saw a television program about those mummies, they looked to be dressed in Scythian attire.

As for the Indian tribes,those remaining of the eastern woodland people, the ones not sent to Oklahoma look to have some or a lot of European blood. Some of the Mattaponi, Pamunkey, Chickahominy and Nasemond near me have both Anglo and African American mixed in with their features, others seem more Indian.

During the 17th and 18th centuries a lot of French as well as Gaelic Irish and Scots married into the eastern tribes. Aside from John Rolfe and Matoaka along with a few other rare cases, the English colonists looked down upon such marital unions, but did not mind fleeting sexual encounters with Indians.

 

[Nashitheki]

Mattaponi Pow Wow -

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Mattaponi Pow Wow ~ 2011 - YouTube

 

[Nashitheki]

William MacIntosh, Creek chief(pictured), who was mostly Scottish and executed by the Creeks for selling off most of the tribe's homeland to the Americans. By that time most of the groups which made up the southeastern 'Five Civilized Tribes' were led by mixed people, like John Ross of the Cherokee

 

[painted wolf]

Given how long (over 400 years) there have been Europeans coming into North America... it would be all but impossible for there not to be a large amount of mixing going on.

DNA is a very useful tool... but it needs to be used correctly. Testing modern populations for answers to questions about the deep past just won't cut it. You would need to test the bones of per-Columbian people... and that is problematic to say the least.

wa:do

 

[Nashitheki]

Checking out some information about Indians, I found myself over at a nazi site where they were more or less claiming that Europeans migrated to America during the Ice Age and through that infusion of blood the Indians became smarter than what they were. Of course one of these people was claiming that Viking artifacts found here in North America far predated anything Indian. It just goes to show what kind of ignorance walks hand in hand with such.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

from Science Daily:

For two decades, researchers have been using a growing volume of genetic data to debate whether ancestors of Native Americans emigrated to the New World in one wave or successive waves, or from one ancestral Asian population or a number of different populations.

Now, after painstakingly comparing DNA samples from people in dozens of modern-day Native American and Eurasian groups, an international team of scientists thinks it can put the matter to rest: virtually without exception, the new evidence supports the single ancestral population theory.

“Our work provides strong evidence that, in general, Native Americans are more closely related to each other than to any other existing Asian populations, except those that live at the very edge of the Bering Strait,” said Kari Britt Schroeder, a lecturer at the University of California, Davis, and the first author on the paper describing the study.

“While earlier studies have already supported this conclusion, what’s different about our work is that it provides the first solid data that simply cannot be reconciled with multiple ancestral populations,” said Schroeder, who was a Ph.D. student in anthropology at the university when she did the research.
The study is published in the May issue of the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Also see Is This Russian Landscape the Birthplace of Native Americans?.

 

[painted wolf]

*Deleted Post*

Please don't proselytize here... it's against the rules of the forum. :tsk:

wa:do

 

[painted wolf]

As Jay pointed out... thus far all the genetic evidence shows that our American Indian/First Nations ancestors originated with a population in North Eastern Siberia over 14,000 years ago.

There is no convincing evidence that supports any of the ideas that they came from anywhere else. Not Europe or Israel or Polynesia.

While there is good evidence that the Norse visited, they did not contribute to the gene pool, which makes perfect sense given the Norse culture of the time and the circumstances of their arrival and departure.

wa:do

 

[painted wolf]

*Deleted Post*

This isn't the place for you to tell us about Jesus.
The beliefs you talk about (Jews did it) were actually pretty commonly used to discredit American Indian cultural achievements in the beginning of the 19th century and are only unique in having been codified into christian scripture. Such ideas were quickly discarded as biased/bigoted and unsupportable by the evidence.

If you want to discuss the BoM you have a Mormonism forum to do so or the general discussion forums. This is the DIR for Indigenous religions, First Nations religions specifically.

wa:do

 

[Nashitheki]

We Shawano were not a lost tribe, we just couldn't ever decide which way to go.

The Shawnee creation story is similar to that of other Algonquian tribes. We were once on another island, but had no way to leave. We asked the spirits for assistance and were transported across the water. We Shawnees are the only Algonquian tribe whose creation story that mentions ancestors crossing a sea. Long ago this passage was celebrated annually and sacrifices were made to our spirit helpers.

Kokumthena created this world and us to wander upon it. She warned us long ago about a evil spirit that was out to undo her creations, and a great horned snake that would come across the sea and attempt to rub out the Shawano.

 

[Broken Smoke]

Early Man Shared Florida With Mammoths : Discovery News

Judaism wasn't around 10,000 years ago.

 

[Broken Smoke]

Also see Is This Russian Landscape the Birthplace of Native Americans?.

Only for those who crossed on the landbridge to Alaska. Don't forget the other migration that was happening from South America. In fact, we still don't know how many different migrations took place.