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Classification of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas

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The Americas, Western Hemisphere
Cultural regions of North American people at the time of contact
Early Indigenous languages in the US

Historically, classification of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas is based upon cultural regions, geography, and linguistics. Anthropologists have named various cultural regions, with fluid boundaries, that are generally agreed upon with some variation. These cultural regions are broadly based upon the locations of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas from early European and African contact beginning in the late 15th century. When Indigenous peoples have been forcibly removed by nation-states, they retain their original geographic classification. Some groups span multiple cultural regions. Peoples can also be classified by genetics, technology, and social structure.

Canada, Greenland, United States, and northern Mexico

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In the United States and Canada, ethnographers commonly classify Indigenous peoples into ten geographical regions with shared cultural traits, called cultural areas.[1] Greenland is part of the Arctic region. Some scholars combine the Plateau and Great Basin regions into the Intermontane West, some separate Prairie peoples from Great Plains peoples, while some separate Great Lakes tribes from the Northeastern Woodlands.

Arctic

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Inuktitut dialect map
Early Indigenous languages in Alaska

Subarctic

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Main article: Indigenous peoples of the Subarctic

Pacific Northwest coast

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Main article: Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast

Northwest Plateau

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Main article: Indigenous peoples of the Northwest Plateau
  • Chinook peoples
  • Interior Salish
  • Sahaptin people
  • Other or both

Great Plains

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Main article: Plains Indians

Indigenous peoples of the Great Plains are often separated into Northern and Southern Plains tribes.

Eastern Woodlands

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Main article: Indigenous peoples of the Eastern Woodlands

Northeastern Woodlands

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Main article: Indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands

Southeastern Woodlands

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Further information: Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands and Indigenous peoples of Florida

Most of these no longer exist as tribes.

Great Basin

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Main article: Indigenous peoples of the Great Basin

California

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Main article: Indigenous peoples of California

Nota bene: The California cultural area does not exactly conform to the state of California's boundaries, and many tribes on the eastern border with Nevada are classified as Great Basin tribes and some tribes on the Oregon border are classified as Plateau tribes.[56]

Southwest

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Main articles: Indigenous peoples of the North American Southwest and Oasisamerica

This region is also called "Oasisamerica" and includes parts of what is now Arizona, Southern Colorado, New Mexico, Western Texas, Southern Utah, Chihuahua, and Sonora

Mexico and Mesoamerica

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The regions of Oasisamerica, Aridoamerica, and Mesoamerica span multiple countries and overlap.

Aridoamerica

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Aridoamerica region of North America
Main article: Aridoamerica

Mesoamerica

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Map of Mesoamerica

Circum-Caribbean

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Further information: Isthmo-Colombian Area
Cultural regions of South and Central America at the time of contact (in Spanish)

Partially organized per Handbook of South American Indians.[65]

Caribbean

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Anthropologist Julian Steward defined the Antilles cultural area, which includes all of the Antilles and Bahamas, except for Trinidad and Tobago.[65]

Central America

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The Central American culture area includes part of El Salvador, most of Honduras, all of Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama, and some peoples on or near the Pacific coasts of Colombia and Ecuador.[65]

Colombia and Venezuela

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The Colombia and Venezuela culture area includes most of Colombia and Venezuela. Southern Colombia is in the Andean culture area, as are some peoples of central and northeastern Colombia, who are surrounded by peoples of the Colombia and Venezuela culture. Eastern Venezuela is in the Guianas culture area, and southeastern Colombia and southwestern Venezuela are in the Amazonia culture area.[65]

Guianas

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The Guianas in northern South America
The position of the Guianas in the Neotropical realm in northern South America

This region includes northern parts Colombia, French Guiana, Guyana, Suriname, Venezuela, and parts of the Amazonas, Amapá, Pará, and Roraima States in Brazil.

Eastern Brazil

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This region includes parts of the Ceará, Goiás, Espírito Santo, Mato Grosso, Mato Grosso do Sul, Pará, and Santa Catarina states of Brazil

Andes

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The Tawantinsuyu, or fullest extent of the Inca Empire, which includes much of the Andean cultural region
Main article: Andes § Human activity

Pacific lowlands

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Amazon

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Main article: Amazon basin

Northwestern Amazon

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This region includes Amazonas in Brazil; the Amazonas and Putumayo Departments in Colombia; Cotopaxi, Los Rios, Morona-Santiago, Napo, and Pastaza Provinces and the Oriente Region in Ecuador; and the Loreto Region in Peru.

Eastern Amazon

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This region includes Amazonas, Maranhão, and parts of Pará States in Brazil.

Southern Amazon

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This region includes southern Brazil (Mato Grosso, Mato Grosso do Sul, parts of Pará, and Rondônia) and Eastern Bolivia (Beni Department).

Southwestern Amazon

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This region includes the Cuzco, Huánuco Junín, Loreto, Madre de Dios, and Ucayali Regions of eastern Peru, parts of Acre, Amazonas, and Rondônia, Brazil, and parts of the La Paz and Beni Departments of Bolivia.

Gran Chaco

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Approximate region of the Gran Chaco
Main article: Gran Chaco

Southern Cone

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Patagonian languages at the time of European/African contact
Main article: Southern Cone

Fjords and channels of Patagonia

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Languages

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Main article: Indigenous languages of the Americas

Indigenous languages of the Americas (or Amerindian languages) are spoken by Indigenous peoples from the southern tip of South America to Alaska and Greenland, encompassing the land masses which constitute the Americas. These Indigenous languages consist of dozens of distinct language families as well as many language isolates and unclassified languages. Many proposals to group these into higher-level families have been made. According to UNESCO, most of the Indigenous American languages in North America are critically endangered and many of them are already extinct.[74]

Writing

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Before European contact:

After European contact, some distinct writing systems have been used for Indigenous languages:

Genetic classification

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Main article: Genetic history of Indigenous peoples of the Americas
Further information: Y-DNA haplogroups in Indigenous peoples of the Americas

The haplogroup most commonly associated with Indigenous Americans is Haplogroup Q1a3a (Y-DNA).[75] Y-DNA, like (mtDNA), differs from other nuclear chromosomes in that the majority of the Y chromosome is unique and does not recombine during meiosis. This has the effect that the historical pattern of mutations can more easily be studied.[76] The pattern indicates Indigenous peoples of the Americas experienced two very distinctive genetic episodes; first with the initial peopling of the Americas, and secondly with European colonization of the Americas.[77][78] The former is the determinant factor for the number of gene lineages and founding haplotypes present in today's Indigenous American populations.[77]

Human settlement of the Americas occurred in stages from the Bering sea coast line, with an initial 20,000-year layover on Beringia for the founding population.[79][80] The micro-satellite diversity and distributions of the Y lineage specific to South America indicates that certain Amerindian populations have been isolated since the initial colonization of the region.[81] The Na-Dené, Inuit and Alaska Native populations exhibit haplogroup Q (Y-DNA) mutations, however are distinct from other Indigenous Americans with various mtDNA mutations.[82][83][84] This suggests that the earliest migrants into the northern extremes of North America and Greenland derived from later populations.[85]

Empires

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Arising before European contact:

Comancheria (1770-1850) has also been described by some scholars as a Native American empire which arose after European contact.

Civilizations

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These complex societies developed cities before European contact.

Technological and social periods

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Further information: List of archaeological periods (North America), List of archaeological periods (Mesoamerica), and Periodization of pre-Columbian Peru

The Andes, Mesoamerica, and eastern North America are considered centers that independently developed agriculture, a process known globally as the Neolithic Revolution.

The technological and social development of pre-Columbian cultures are conventionally classified into five archaeological stages:

In North America, the later stages are grouped instead into the Woodland period and Mississippian culture.

Metallurgy in pre-Columbian America included for some cultures equivalents to Eurasian Copper Age and Bronze Age technology:

The Iron Age in Eurasia is defined by the production of iron tools via smelting; iron smelting was never developed natively in the Americas. Unsmelted iron was used Andeana and Mesoamerican cultures for mirrors, decorative and ceremonial items, starting fires, and small hammers. Iron magnets were apparently used by the Olmec and Chavin to align monuments. Smelted iron from shipwrecked East Asian vessels was used in the Pacific Northwest before European contact.

Further information: List of pre-Columbian inventions and innovations of Indigenous Americans

See also

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Notes

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  1. ^ "Culture Areas Index". the Canadian Museum of Civilization. Archived from the original on 2013-11-04. Retrieved 2009-08-18.
  2. ^ "Dena'ina." Archived 2016-11-15 at the Wayback Machine Alaska Native Language Center. Accessed December 10, 2016.
  3. ^ "Slavey". The Canadian Encyclopedia. Historica Canada. Archived from the original on 13 January 2017. Retrieved 10 December 2016.
  4. ^ Indian Claims Commission (1978). Indian Claims Commission Decisions, Volume 11, Part 1. Washington, DC: Native American Rights Fund. pp. 332–33.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af ag ah Sturtevant and Trigger ix
  6. ^ a b c d "Preamble." Constitution of the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma Archived 2013-10-07 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 5 Dec 2012.
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af ag "Cultural Thesaurus" Archived 2010-06-24 at the Wayback Machine. National Museum of the American Indian. Accessed 8 April 2014.
  8. ^ a b c d e f Sturtevant and Trigger 241
  9. ^ a b c d Sturtevant and Trigger 198
  10. ^ a b c d e Goddard 72
  11. ^ Goddard 72 and 237
  12. ^ a b c d e Goddard 237
  13. ^ Goddard 72, 237–38
  14. ^ a b c Goddard 238
  15. ^ Goddard 72 and 238
  16. ^ a b Sturtevant and Fogelson, 290
  17. ^ a b c d e f g h i Sturtevant and Trigger 161
  18. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Sturtevant and Fogelson, 293
  19. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Sturtevant and Fogelson, 81–82
  20. ^ a b Sturtevant and Fogelson, 291
  21. ^ a b c d Vest, Jay Hansford C. (Winter–Spring 2005). "An Odyssey among the Iroquois: A History of Tutelo Relations in New York". American Indian Quarterly. 29 (1/2): 124–55. doi:10.1353/aiq.2005.0072. JSTOR 4138803.
  22. ^ Brooks, Rebecca Beatrice. "Native American Tribes in Massachusetts". History of Massachusetts. Retrieved 15 November 2021.
  23. ^ Sturtevant and Trigger 255
  24. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af ag ah ai aj ak Sturtevant and Fogelson, 69
  25. ^ a b c d e f Sturtevant and Fogelson, 205
  26. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Sturtevant and Fogelson, 214
  27. ^ Sturtevant and Fogelson, 673
  28. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x Sturtevant and Fogelson, ix
  29. ^ a b c d e f g h i Sturtevant and Fogelson, 374
  30. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Sturtevant, 617
  31. ^ Folgelson, ed. (2004), p. 315
  32. ^ a b c d Frank, Andrew K. "Indian Removal". The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture. Retrieved 28 April 2024.
  33. ^ Hann, John H. (2006). The Native American World Beyond Apalachee. University Press of Florida. pp. 53–56. ISBN 978-0-8130-2982-5.
  34. ^ a b Sturtevant and Fogelson, 188
  35. ^ a b Sturtevant and Fogelson, 598–99
  36. ^ a b c d e Hann, John H. (2006). The Native American World Beyond Apalachee. University Press of Florida. p. 87. ISBN 978-0-8130-2982-5.
  37. ^ a b c Sturtevant and Fogelson, 302
  38. ^ Hann 1993
  39. ^ Sturtevant and Fogelson, 78, 668
  40. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Hann 1996, 5–13
  41. ^ Milanich 1999, p. 49.
  42. ^ Milanich 1996, p. 46.
  43. ^ Hann 2003:11
  44. ^ Sturtevant and Fogelson, 190
  45. ^ a b c d e f D'Azevedo, ix
  46. ^ D'Azevedo, 161–62
  47. ^ a b c Loether, Christopher. "Shoshones" Archived 2014-11-10 at the Wayback Machine. Encyclopedia of the Great Plains. Retrieved 20 Oct 2013.
  48. ^ a b c Shimkin 335
  49. ^ a b c d e f Murphy and Murphy 306
  50. ^ a b c Murphy and Murphy 287
  51. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Thomas, Pendleton, and Cappannari 280–83
  52. ^ a b c d e f g Pritzker, 230
  53. ^ a b c d e f D'Azevedo, 339
  54. ^ a b c d D'Azevedo, 340
  55. ^ Nicholas, Walter S. "A Short History of Johnsondale". RRanch.org. Archived from the original on 2010-10-31. Retrieved 2010-06-04.
  56. ^ Pritzker 112
  57. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af ag ah ai aj ak al am an ao ap aq ar as at au Heizer ix
  58. ^ Heizer 205–07
  59. ^ Heizer 190
  60. ^ Heizer 593
  61. ^ Heizer 769
  62. ^ Heizer 249
  63. ^ a b c d e f g h i "Mexico: Map". Ethnologue. Archived from the original on 25 September 2015. Retrieved 16 November 2015.
  64. ^ "Paipai Language (Akwa'ala)" Archived 2010-09-26 at the Wayback Machine. Native Languages of the Americas. Retrieved 10 Sept 2010.
  65. ^ a b c d Steward, Julian H. (1948) Editor. Handbook of South American Indians. Volume 4 The Circum-Caribbean Tribes. Smithsonian Institution Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 143.
  66. ^ "Aboriginal Roots of Cuban Culture" Archived 2012-03-26 at the Wayback Machine. (retrieved 9 July 2011)
  67. ^ a b c d "Prehistory of the Caribbean Culture Area" Archived 2011-08-05 at the Wayback Machine. Southeast Archaeological Center. (retrieved 9 July 2011)
  68. ^ "Cacaopera" Archived 2019-09-13 at the Wayback Machine. UNESCO World Heritage Centre. (retrieved 1 Dec 2011)
  69. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x "Languages of Bolivia" Archived 2012-10-02 at the Wayback Machine. Ethnologue. Retrieved 23 Oct 2012.
  70. ^ "Apiaká: Introduction" Archived 2012-03-30 at the Wayback Machine. Instituto Socioambiental: Povos Indígenas no Brasil. Retrieved 28 March 2012
  71. ^ "Huachipaeri" Archived 2011-11-16 at the Wayback Machine. Ethnologue. Retrieved 18 Feb 2012.
  72. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m "Cultural Thesaurus" Archived 2011-04-29 at the Wayback Machine. National Museum of the American Indian. (retrieved 18 Feb 2011)
  73. ^ "Puelche". Encyclopædia Britannica. Archived from the original on 1 December 2016. Retrieved 1 December 2016.
  74. ^ Gordon, Raymond G., Jr. (Ed.). (2005). Ethnologue: Languages of the world (15th ed.). Dallas, TX: SIL International. ISBN 1-55671-159-X. (Online version: http://www.ethnologue.com)[permanent dead link‍].
  75. ^ "Y-Chromosome Evidence for Differing Ancient Demographic Histories in the Americas" (PDF). Department of Biology, University College, London; Departamento de Gene´tica, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil; Instituto Venezolano de Investigaciones Cientı´ficas, Caracas, Venezuela; Departamento de Gene´tica, Universidade Federal do Parana´, Curitiba, Brazil; 5Department of Anthropology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque; 6Laboratorio de Gene´tica Humana, Universidad de los Andes, Bogota´; Victoria Hospital, Prince Albert, Canada; Subassembly of Medical Sciences, Mongolian Academy of Sciences, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia; Laboratorio de Gene´tica Molecular, Facultad de Medicina, Universidad de Antioquia, Medellı´n, Colombia; Université de Montréal. University College London 73:524–539. 2003. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2019-04-30. Retrieved 2010-01-22.
  76. ^ Orgel L (2004). "Prebiotic chemistry and the origin of the RNA world" (PDF). Crit Rev Biochem Mol Biol. 39 (2): 99–123. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.537.7679. doi:10.1080/10409230490460765. PMID 15217990. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2018-11-13. Retrieved 2010-01-19.
  77. ^ a b Wendy Tymchuk, Senior Technical Editor (2008). "Learn about Y-DNA Haplogroup Q". Genebase Systems. Archived from the original (Verbal tutorial possible) on 2010-06-22. Retrieved 2009-11-21. Haplogroups are defined by unique mutation events such as single nucleotide polymorphisms, or SNPs. These SNPs mark the branch of a haplogroup, and indicate that all descendants of that haplogroup at one time shared a common ancestor. The Y-DNA SNP mutations were passed from father to son over thousands of years. Over time, additional SNPs occur within a haplogroup, leading to new lineages. These new lineages are considered subclades of the haplogroup. Each time a new mutation occurs, there is a new branch in the haplogroup, and therefore a new subclade. Haplogroup Q, possibly the youngest of the 20 Y-chromosome haplogroups, originated with the SNP mutation M242 in a man from Haplogroup P that likely lived in Siberia approximately 15,000 to 20,000 years before present {{cite web}}: |author= has generic name (help)
  78. ^ Wells, Spencer; Read, Mark (2002). The Journey of Man – A Genetic Odyssey (Digitised online by Google books). Random House. ISBN 0-8129-7146-9. Archived from the original on 2016-05-18. Retrieved 2009-11-21.
  79. ^ "First Americans Endured 20,000-Year Layover – Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News". Archived from the original on 2012-10-10. Retrieved 2009-11-18. Archaeological evidence, in fact, recognizes that people started to leave Beringia for the New World around 40,000 years ago, but rapid expansion into North America didn't occur until about 15,000 years ago, when the ice had literally broken page 2 Archived March 13, 2012, at the Wayback Machine
  80. ^ Than, Ker (2008). "New World Settlers Took 20,000-Year Pit Stop". National Geographic Society. Archived from the original on 2011-01-19. Retrieved 2010-01-23. Over time descendants developed a unique culture—one that was different from the original migrants' way of life in Asia but which contained seeds of the new cultures that would eventually appear throughout the Americas
  81. ^ "Summary of knowledge on the subclades of Haplogroup Q". Genebase Systems. 2009. Archived from the original on 2011-05-10. Retrieved 2009-11-22.
  82. ^ Ruhlen M (November 1998). "The origin of the Na-Dene". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 95 (23): 13994–96. Bibcode:1998PNAS...9513994R. doi:10.1073/pnas.95.23.13994. PMC 25007. PMID 9811914.
  83. ^ Zegura SL, Karafet TM, Zhivotovsky LA, Hammer MF (January 2004). "High-resolution SNPs and microsatellite haplotypes point to a single, recent entry of Native American Y chromosomes into the Americas". Molecular Biology and Evolution. 21 (1): 164–75. doi:10.1093/molbev/msh009. PMID 14595095.
  84. ^ Juliette Saillard; Peter Forster; Niels Lynnerup; Hans-Jürgen Bandelt; Søren Nørby (2000). "mtDNA Variation among Greenland Eskimos. The Edge of the Beringian Expansion". Laboratory of Biological Anthropology, Institute of Forensic Medicine, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, University of Hamburg, Hamburg. Archived from the original on 2011-08-11. Retrieved 2009-11-22. The relatively lower coalescence time of the entire haplogroup A2 including the shared sub-arctic branches A2b (Siberians and Inuit) and A2a (Eskimos and Na-Dené) is probably due to secondary expansions of haplogroup A2 from the Beringia area, which would have averaged the overall internal variation of haplogroup A2 in North America.
  85. ^ A. Torroni; T. G. Schurr; C. C. Yang; EJE. Szathmary; R. C. Williams; M. S. Schanfield; G. A. Troup; W. C. Knowler; D. N. Lawrence; K. M. Weiss; D. C. Wallace (January 1992). "Native American Mitochondrial DNA Analysis Indicates That the Amerind and the Nadene Populations Were Founded by Two Independent Migrations". Center for Genetics and Molecular Medicine and Departments of Biochemistry and Anthropology, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, Georgia. 130 (1). Genetics Society of America: 153–62. Archived from the original on 2009-02-20. Retrieved 2009-11-28. The divergence time for the Nadene portion of the HaeIII np 663 lineage was about 6,000–10,000 years. Hence, the ancestral Nadene migrated from Asia independently and considerably more recently than the progenitors of the Amerinds

References

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  • D'Azevedo, Warren L., volume editor. Handbook of North American Indians, Volume 11: Great Basin. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 1986. ISBN 978-0-16-004581-3.
  • Hann, John H. "The Mayaca and Jororo and Missions to Them", in McEwan, Bonnie G. ed. The Spanish Missions of "La Florida". Gainesville, Florida: University Press of Florida. 1993. ISBN 0-8130-1232-5.
  • Hann, John H. A History of the Timucua Indians and Missions. Gainesville, Florida: University Press of Florida, 1996. ISBN 0-8130-1424-7.
  • Hann, John H. (2003). Indians of Central and South Florida: 1513–1763. University Press of Florida. ISBN 0-8130-2645-8.
  • Heizer, Robert F., volume editor. Handbook of North American Indians, Volume 8: California. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 1978. ISBN 978-0-16-004574-5.
  • Milanich, Jerald (1999). The Timucua. Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 0-631-21864-5. Retrieved June 11, 2010.
  • Pritzker, Barry M. A Native American Encyclopedia: History, Culture, and Peoples. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. ISBN 978-0-19-513877-1.
  • Steward, Julian H., editor. Handbook of South American Indians, Volume 4: The Circum-Caribbean Tribes. Smithsonian Institution, 1948.
  • Sturtevant, William C., general editor and Bruce G. Trigger, volume editor. Handbook of North American Indians: Northeast. Volume 15. Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution, 1978. ASIN B000NOYRRA.
  • Sturtevant, William C., general editor and Raymond D. Fogelson, volume editor. Handbook of North American Indians: Southeast. Volume 14. Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution, 2004. ISBN 0-16-072300-0.
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