Geneticist Traces Mysterious Origins of Native Americans to Middle East, Ancient Greece

The idea that Native Americans are descended from ancient Jews, Egyptians, or Greeks has been a controversial one for hundreds of years. James Adair, an 18th century settler who traded with Native Americans for 40 years, wrote that their language, customs, and social structures were similar to those of the Israelites.

He wrote in his book “The History of the American Indians”: “It is a very difficult thing to divest ourselves, not to say, other persons, of prejudices and favourite opinions, and I expect to be censured by some for opposing commonly received sentiments, or for meddling with a dispute agitated among the learned ever since the first discovery of America.”

In more recent years, similar observations by Dr. Donald Panther-Yates have even met with what Yates described as “hate mail” from indigenous studies professors.

It is commonly held that Native Americans descended from Mongolians. In 2013, a study published in the journal Nature acknowledged that some ancient European ancestry is possible. The DNA from a 24,000-year-old corpse in Siberia was analyzed. It showed no resemblance to Asian populations, only to European, yet it showed a clear connection to Native Americans. But the mainstream scientific community is far from embracing the theory that Native Americans descended from ancient Middle-Eastern or Greek peoples as Yates and some others have proposed.

Yates is of Cherokee descent, he has a Ph.D. in classical studies, and he founded the genetics research institution DNA Consultants. These three credentials have given him a unique perspective on Native American history as it relates to these ancient cultures, and how DNA testing can support the theoretical link.

Genetic Similarities

Native Americans are generally thought to fit into five genetic groups, known as haplotypes, each named by a letter of the alphabet: A,B,C,D, and X.

Yates demonstrated in a paper titled “Anomalous Mitochondrial DNA Lineages in the Cherokee,” what he calls the fallacy behind many genetic analyses: “[The geneticists say] ‘Lineage A, B, C, D, and X are American Indian. Therefore, all American Indians are lineage A, B, C, D, and X.’ The fallacy in such reasoning is apparent. It could be restated as: ‘All men are two-legged creatures; therefore since the skeleton we dug up has two legs, it is human.’ It might be a kangaroo.” 

Any divergence from the expected haplotypes is usually attributed to an intermingling of races after European colonization, not to the genes that came with Native Americans from their origin.

After analyzing Cherokee DNA, Yates concluded, “No such mix could have resulted from post-1492 European gene flow into the Cherokee Nation.”

“So where do our non-European, non-Indian-appearing elements come from?” he asked. “The level of haplogroup T in the Cherokee (26.9 percent) approximates the percentage for Egypt (25 percent), one of the only lands where T attains a major position among the various mitochondrial lineages.”

Continue reading here