Read reviews of science articles, new research and news reports on ancestry testing, ancient DNA and popular genetics
Our book Old World Roots of the Cherokee (McFarland, 2012) describes an expedition from Ptolemaic Egypt that brought the original nucleus of the Cherokee people across the Pacific to America. One of the key pieces of evidence is the Thruston Tablet, also known as the Rocky Creek Stone.
Part Four is the conclusion to our series of reports on the “anomalous Cherokees.” Depicted left is author Donald Yates in Rome .Haplogroup J, termed Jasmine in the scheme of Oxford Ancestors, is believed to have originated in the Old Near East and to have moved north and west into Europe, especially after the spread of agriculture beginning 5000-3000 BCE.
We continue the series of reports on Phase II of our Cherokee DNA Project with case histories for the various haplogroups in the study. Case Histories: Where There’s Smoke
Because of its length, our long-awaited report on Phase II of the Cherokee DNA Project is being published in installments. Part I deals with the background of American Indian haplogroup analysis and the “peopling of the Americas” hypothesis that has prevailed in genetics since 1993. Part Two will describe our procedure and methodology.
I grew up in the Southwest in Richmond, California. My father was from Guayama, Puerto Rico, and my mother was from Maui, Hawaii. My paternal great grandparents kept a diary and worked in the sugarcane, tobacco, and coffee fields and told stories of the Taino Indians from the island of Boriken near Puerto Rico. My mother’s side migrated to Hawaii from Spain and Puerto Rico to work in the pineapple and sugar cane fields. My mom and relatives were in Pearl Harbor and some served in WWII.
Postings from the Edge
By Donald N. Yates
They called her Mother Qualla—a stately, bluish-gray skinned schoolteacher in New York with angular features, thin lips and quick, intelligent eyes. Brian Wilkes and I drove her to her motel room at a meeting of the Southwestern Cherokee Confederacy in Albany, Georgia.
The most important human skeleton found in North America has finally been given a reprieve from legal obstacles to be studied and the resulting information published. In an article by Douglas Preston in Smithsonian Magazine titled “The Kennewick Man Finally Freed to Share His Secrets,” the amazing story of the 9,000 year-old skeleton—and the enormous lengths to which the government and tribal protesters went to block it—is told for the first time.
In the days before standardization of railway gauges, passengers were sometimes obliged to get out of the railcar when the tracks reached a border and climb aboard a waiting train on the next set of rails, which were broader or narrower in design.
Rare Chinese Allele Found Among Southwestern U.S. Hispanics and North Mexican Indians
Like about 5 percent of North Americans, Francesca Serrano was adopted and never knew her birth parents. Wishing to find out her ancestry, she took ourDNA Fingerprint Plus, an autosomal test based on an analysis of STR frequencies that can suggest overall ancestry matches to world populations. The caseworker who prepared her report was amazed at all the apparent Chinese ancestry mixed with Hispanic and Native American.
By and large, the genetics literature on American Indians has been confined to small, scattered samples gleaned from modern groups. This morass of information is vast, growing, and inconclusive.
Attempting to present the “peopling of the Americas” from such a reductive approach is like playing a game of Solitaire with important cards missing.
