Are Cherokee descended from the Ainu of Japan?

Question

they look very similar.

Answer 1

Probably from a similar proto Mongoloid population that made it to Japan, but they were more or less wiped out by the Mongoloid Asians when they arrived. There seem to be some similarities between the HLA genes of native Americans and the Ainu.

http://mathildasanthropologyblog.wordpre...

They also seem to have some ancient European (Solutrean) DNA, haplotype X in them (it's only possible parent clade to the American type X is on the West coast of Europe).

http://mathildasanthropologyblog.wordpre...

Answer 2

There have been some theories in the last few years that people other than just SIberian Asians came to the Americas, one of the theories is that Ainu type people, who at one time lived in more areas in North East Asia than just Japan could have come over here. A skull was found in the Northwest that predated the Asian people who were known to come across the Bering straits.When reconstructed it appeared to some to have "Caucasian" features. But it was theorized that rather than European, it might be Ainu, and they are sometimes lumped into "Caucasianoid" or something like that. But one group, like the Cherokees were not descended from the Ainu directly. If they came over they would have intermarried with Asian (Siberian) groups fro thousands of years. Other theories even have northern Europeans coming over through the polar regions, Australian natives going to South America, etc. But the Cherokees were just one nation of thousands in the Americas.

Answer 3

Probably not.  There seems to be very similar outward appearance (called a phenotype), but the DNA coding (or genotype) is not very similar.

The Ainu are currently found in the extreme north of Japan and differ in looks from the typical Japanese in that they have lighter skin color and more hair upon their bodies.

The actual genotypes of the Cherokee are very different.