Children of the Sun

A chapter on America’s link with the sunken continent of Sundaland, according to the trail of rare genes.

America’s Euchee Indians, though now much diminished in numbers, claimed to be the oldest indigenous people in the Southeast. DNA Consultants was fortunate to test a sample for them and add it to the database containning profiles of 550 populations around the world. In the 2025 book Countercurrents of Prehistory, two of these Euchee descendants—Bill Bass and Holly McDaniel—are featured, along with their surprising DNA matches. The Euchee Indians, like others discussed in the book, appear to have originated with Austronesians, which came, in turn, from Island Southeast Asia, like the first Cherokees and Polynesians. The stamp of Austronesian and Polynesian culture is still visible in the archeology and anthropology of Southeastern U.S. Indians as well as the Indians who built the Ohio mounds. Austronesian has been called “the third element” in New World civilizations.