Is it true American Indians are of Asian Descent?

Question

I'm part American Indian and an ancestor of mine looks Asian, though they are a Southwest American Indian, anyway, which group are we descended of? I've heard we are Siberian, Japanese, and Chinese and Mongolian. Which one is it?

Answer 1

There are more true answers above than you might realize. Although the theory about Asians migrating by land during the Ice Age over what is now covered by the Bering Strait is most likely, that does not preclude other possibilities. Asians from Siberia may also have arrived in the New World via canoes, while pursuing fish and game along the Pacific Coast. It is even possible that some of these boats capsized and people managed to swim ashore. Another theory is that Polynesians arrived at the coast of South America. None of these hypotheses precludes the possibility of the others.

Answer 2

Mostly of Asian descent. There's evidence they weren't the first colonists though, The Australoids were there about 45,000 years ago, then the Cro Magnon Europeans, then the Jomon Asians (not a mongoloid people) then finally the Mongoloid Asians pretty recently. This would make the 'first peoples' technically the 'fourth peoples'. So modern native Americans have a tiny bit of the other three groups in them, but mostly Mongoloid Asian.

Answer 3

No, they desended from pizza loving chipmonks from the hymalains.

Answer 4

It would seem to be one root for sure because it is the closest land to America. I like the book of Mormon story too.

Answer 5

How dare you judge my nationality!

I'm Souamerindisiberjapachingolian and proud of it!!



I swam my *** from asia, aint no lazy foo!

Answer 6

The most widely accepted theory is that we migrated from asia across the area where the bering strait is now (it was supposed to have been land at one time) and then on into north and then south america.  So it would probably fit the siberian idea best.

I dunno how far I accept that theory, but it's what they teach mostly.

Answer 7

Since current theory is that American Indians migrated across the Bearing Strait landbridge from Asia, then yes, it makes sense that there are common physical features.  That means you're of asian descent... but that's like saying that if you go back far enough, we're all of African descent (according to current theory).

For more information on how ancestry can be traced back so far, try looking up mitochondrial DNA studies.  I can't quite remember, but I think SNP's (single nucleotide polymorphisms) have also been used for ancestry/ethnicity studies.  These sorts of things could tell how genetically similar one geographic group is to another, and find whether a given native american tribe is most closely related to Chinese, Mongolian, etc.  

I haven't done any research on the subject, but assuming that native americans came over the land bridge, I would guess they're most closely related to people who live on the Russian side of the bearing strait, and people from northern china... but it really depends on how much people moved around following the american migration.

Answer 8

None. While modern Amerinds and Asians share ancestors that does not mean Amerinds are Asians or vice versa!

Basic error of logic!

Answer 9

Most of the Native Americans are descended from people that came from Asia. "Mongolian" has been used to describe the peoples living in East Asia. There are several reasons to accept this explanation.

First is the process of elimination. There are no hominids that developed in the Americas. This is the family that include humans and apes. Therefore, any humans had to come from elsewhere.

Second is physical evidence. The appearance of humans in the Americas coincides with the end of the last ice age and the existence of the Bering land bridge. Further, the only other routes to the Americas are either across the pack ice from Europe or by ocean. Neither has any compelling evidence that man first used such routes. To reach Australia requires crossing 60 miles of open water. Europe to the America requires thousand of miles. While such routes cannot be ruled out, the number that would have arrived in this manner would be extremely small.

Carbon14 dating shows that man appears between 15,000 to 32,000 years age. This coincides with the existence of Beringia. This is the name given to the land bridge between Asia and Amrica.

Next is teeth. Native Americans have what is called shovel shaped teeth. Basically the back of the front teeth are curved, much like a shovel. This is a trait that they share with people in Northwestern Asia.

There's the fact that Native American languages show they belong to there groupings: PaleoIndians ( Pai, Pima, and Pueloans); Athapaskans (Navaho and Apache) and Eskimo-Aleut (Inuits). The roots of these languages show commonality with Asian Tongues.

Lastly there's physical remains. Like teeth shape, the earliest skeletons of Paleoamericans show that they were of Mongolian stock. That is Asian. Even today the blood grouping of Native Americans and even some of the inherited diseases show and Asian origin. Even the Kennewick Man, dated to 9,300 appears to be from Asia.

To sum it up, people didn't developed in the Americas; they had one main route through Beringia to get there; and the earliest remains show they were of Asian descent.  

          Some of this is subject to change. As Mathilda points out there is evidence of settlement by other peoples. The oldest remains found do not match those of the Native Americans. They appear to have aspects similar to European or Asian heritage, possibly related to the people living in northern Japan or Polynesia.

           While current DNA research suggests that man entered the Americas from Asia upwards of 30,000 years ago. Interestingly there's also the "X factor." This is a DNA strand that occurs in a small percentage of Native Americans. There's a corresponding strand in Europe but nowhere else.

            Clovis sites seem to be most common on the east coast North American, centered in the Chesapeake region. This is at odds to the Asian migration.

            Finally there's the "post holiday shopping sale" issue. Man is documented to be at the tip of South American only 500 years after he supposedly got past the ice barrier. It requires a firm push South of 25 miles or more per generation. Nowhere else in human existence has anything similar been seen.

          Short version. "Yes" Native Americans are of Asian descent. They may not have been the first into the Americas.

Answer 10

Nationa Geographic did an article on a nun from St Joseph, Mn.  She lived with and studied the Ainu tribe of Japan, called the "white Japanese."  They have similar beliefs to Indian tribes in North America.  They have a religious ritual as the "Bear Clan" and they believe they were lowered by golden ladders from a silver bird, and told to populate that area.... that the land there belonged to them.  When college students went to study with the nun, they found that certain Indian tribes understood some of the Ainu language. The Apache, I believe, have a lot of the same myths, including that they were lowered on golden ladders by a silver bird .  

As for the Eastern way into North America, there is specualtion that a land mass between Europe and North America once existed, which allowed the peoples of that area to reach the shores.  That land mass has since disappeared, sometimes called, "Atlantis."