Did the Native Americans have Caucasian genetic admixture?

Question

I understand they are largely of east Asian ancestry, but I find that they more closely resemble central Asian turks, in terms of their facial features, than pure mongoloids. Is there any genetic evidence to suggest pre-Columbian European admixture?

Answer 1

I think that's up for grabs at the moment, given the situation which I will state below:

A few years ago, a skull was found  somewhere back east, I believe, that predates the American Indians by several thousand years, and it was a Caucasian skull!  With no doubt. In fact, they did one of those clay recreations, and the guy looked a lot like Patrick Stewart (Picard from Star Trek).

The ridiculous thing is, the Indians have gotten so many laws passed here, one of them saying that they get jurisdiction over Indian remains, for "sacred burial" reasons.

Since the current reasoning was that they were here first, all old skeletons are automatically legally declared as being Indian.

So they're claiming the skull as Indian, and blocking any further scientific study on it!

There have also been some recent discoveries and theories that challenge the typical one, of them coming over the straights to get here, so who knows?

I'm wondering if anyone has done any DNA work to trace them?  It would seem obvious, but I haven't heard about it.

Answer 2

The American Indians originated in Asia, and crossed the Bering Strait approximately 12-20000 years ago.  They were NOT native to North America.  North America had no native peoples.

Answer 3

U never know.

Answer 4

Yes, a small percentage of those in the Eastern US & Eastern Brazil have been found to have haplogroup X (DNA). This MtDNA is not found in East Asia, but is found in Western Europe. The DNA & Clovis point technology may have come from Western Spain about 20,000 yrs ago.

http://www.annalsnyas.org/cgi/content/ab...

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/article...

While far the majority of Native Americans appear to crossed Beringa before the ocean rose some 100 meters at the end of the last ice age, many hypothesize that some followed the ice edge from Europe to the eastern shores of the Americas hunting marine animals with small boats some 20,000 yrs ago.  DNA indicates some Pacific Islander DNA contributions to the Western South Americas too... Nearly 50% of the Inca seem to have this DNA. About 25% of the Yanomamo of Brazil have haplogroup X MtDNA.  Therefore the Native Americans seem to be the product of at least 3 migrations of people from 20,000 to ~13,000 yrs ago.

Look about 2/3 way down on this link, it gives a fine migration map.

http://www.roperld.com/mtdna.htm

Answer 5

Yes, although everyones doing their best to deny it.

The East coast Indians have a high incidence of a mitchondrial DNA type called haplotype X, that comes from Iberia and Morocco (it's a Berber lineage). There's only one incidence of haplotype X found anywhere in Asia, in Altains (Siberia), and it's just totally impossible for it to be a ancestor of the Native American type X, as it's not closely related at all, and it's only been there a few thousand years.

The only place it could have come from is Iberians or Berbers, and probably during the last glacial maximum, a very long time ago. The current theory is that they followed the pack ice around, the way modern Eskimos do. they could have hauled out onto the ice if the weather was bad, and it would have provided water, and they could have fished en route. It's called the Solutrean hypothesis.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haplogroup_...

In spite of this, you'll still the path of haplotype X marked on mitochondrial population maps as entering via Asia, even though there's evidence against it.

I've looked at the faces of East coast natives in the old photos. A lot of them do look like dark skinned Europeans. The Asian eye shape doesn't seem common among them, and some have really aquilline noses. I've also seen at least one acount by a settler that gives a minority of them as having blue or grey eyes. There's a very old newspaper clipping the describes someone seeing a fair haired Eskimo on an expedition. Although, no firm proof of that at all on the colouring.

http://216.239.59.104/search?q=cache:1KZ...

There are also traditions of a tall, red haired people  described by the natives in their legends (not giants, that's a translational error). These are legends common to places all over the world. History is weird.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Si-Te-Cah