Theories about Turkic vs. European Roots of Native Americans

Abstract

All human beings are interested in their origins and try to account for their existence through creation stories. Creation stories, which commonly explain how people came into existence, how they acquired tools and customs, and why they should act, or not act in certain ways, contain fundamental conceptions of nature, society, and their relations to the world and to one another. The United States of America is the best example of a country with a melting pot of cultures; it is the most racially and culturally diverse nation on the planet. With its great diversity, the United States contains many peoples with a variety of origin stories. One of the most interesting is that of Native Americans. The article aims to explore and examine three different approaches regarding the origins of the first immigrants of America – American Indians: views of the Native American tribes about their origin, the approach of Turkish historians’ claiming Native Americans Eurasian roots and a newly conducted research by paleogeneticists based on the American Indians’ European roots.