Siouan, Iroquoian, and Caddoan

Implications of the distribution of Albumin Naskapi and Albumin Mexico for new world prehistory

“…Earlier reports of AL*Mexico in Zuni (Brown and Johnson, 1970) and Nahua (Lisker et al, 1971) could not be confirmed by this study, perhaps due to the restricted sample sizes or to sampling error in the present study. The absence of both mutations among the Cherokee is consistent with their reported absence among the Mohawk, also an Iroquoian-speaking group, but AL*Naskapi was present in three Siouan individuals whose language has been hypothesized, but not proven (e.g., see discussion of the Macrosiouan hypothesis in Campbell, 1997) to be related to Iroquian (Allen, 1931;Chafe, 1973). AL*Naskapi was present in all four Algonquian groups studied (but not in a miscellaneous group of "other" (predominantly Eastern) Algonquians) and in two groups (Bella Coola and Nootka) whose languages were previously hypothesized to be remotely related both to each other (Swadesh, 1953a,b) and to Algonquian (Sapir, 1929).…”

Language and the prehistory of North America

“…Algonquian and Gulf languages are now linked into one phylum, largely due to the work of Mary Haas; but again, the relationship (if real) is quite remote. Siouan, Caddoan, Iroquoian, and Yuchi are also classified as constituting one phylum, but little evidence has been offered to substantiate such a group (but see Chafe 1973). Uto-Aztecan and Kiowa-Tanoan have been linked at the phylum level at least since the 1930s.…”

“…In the sixteenth century, 'the Wichita were probably located in central Kansas. After moving into what is now Oklahoma, where they were found by Frenchmen in the early eighteenth century, they were gradually forced further south into Texas before the end of that century' (Chafe 1973(Chafe : 1166, and 'the Kitsai may have been located prehistorically in Oklahoma, but Europeans first found them living in what is now Texas between the Red River and the upper Trinity' (Chafe 1973(Chafe : 1166. This suggests that the Pawnee, Wichita, and Kitsai may earlier have formed a continuum or chain of dialects (later diverging into distinct languages), with Caddo separated and to the south-east.…”

“…A further link through them to the two more southern groups is not difficult to imagine, but not known in historical times. Chafe (1973Chafe ( : 1169 asserts that 'the degree of difference between these two branches is only a little less than that between the most divergent languages of the Indo-European family'. Clearly, Cherokee began diverging from the other Iroquoian languages long ago, and its degree of difference today from Northern Iroquoian languages suggests a long period of geographical discontiguity between the two branches.…”

“…Thus the Dakota were first encountered in the Upper Mississippi River area and, under pressure from Indian groups to the east, spread westwards into the upper Missouri River drainage in the eighteenth century. According to Chafe, 'in prehistoric times the ancestors of the Dhegiha speakers may have lived farther to the east (according to tradition, near the junction of the Wabash and Ohio Rivers), but earliest European contact found them in the central plains' (Chafe 1973(Chafe : 1182. The Biloxi moved westwards from where they were first contacted in southern Mississippi in the early eighteenth century, and subsequently largely died out while living in Louisiana and eastern Texas (Crawford 1975: 51).…”