# Do any "full blooded" Native Americans still exist?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-full-blooded-native-americans-still-exist/585913>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [June 18, 2011, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-full-blooded-native-americans-still-exist/585913 "2011-06-18T05:41:32Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 20\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Blalron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)\
**Post date:** [June 18, 2011, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-full-blooded-native-americans-still-exist/585913/1 "2011-06-18T05:41:32Z")

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By “full blooded”, I mean having only native american ancestory, with no European or other ancestors mixed in.

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**Author:** ![Farmer\_Jane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Farmer\_Jane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Farmer_Jane)\
**Post date:** [June 18, 2011, 7:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-full-blooded-native-americans-still-exist/585913/2 "2011-06-18T07:54:05Z")

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A drop of white makes you not full blooded? Wtf?

Uh, yeah. Go south.

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**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\
**Post date:** [June 18, 2011, 8:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-full-blooded-native-americans-still-exist/585913/3 "2011-06-18T08:11:07Z")

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> [@Blalron](#):
>
> By “full blooded”, I mean having only native american ancestory, with no European or other ancestors mixed in.

Yes.

Seriously, is that surprising? There aren’t a lot of them, but they do exist.

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**Author:** ![PlainJain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/5daacb/32.png) [@PlainJain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PlainJain)\
**Post date:** [June 18, 2011, 8:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-full-blooded-native-americans-still-exist/585913/4 "2011-06-18T08:18:11Z")

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Yes, lots.

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**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\
**Post date:** [June 18, 2011, 8:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-full-blooded-native-americans-still-exist/585913/5 "2011-06-18T08:34:28Z")

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> [@CitizenPained](#):
>
> A drop of white makes you not full blooded? Wtf?

Well, yes, not having 100% of a given heritage means you do not have 100% of that heritage.

> [@](#):
>
> Uh, yeah. Go south.

Uh no. This is not one drop rule. One drop of “white,” doesn’t make you white. That’s not what anybody has said. What do you think “full blooded” means?

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**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\
**Post date:** [June 18, 2011, 8:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-full-blooded-native-americans-still-exist/585913/6 "2011-06-18T08:36:23Z")

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> [@Broomstick](#):
>
> Yes.

Any chance of some evidence?

> [@](#):
>
> Seriously, is that surprising?

To me, it’s very surprising.

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**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\
**Post date:** [June 18, 2011, 9:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-full-blooded-native-americans-still-exist/585913/7 "2011-06-18T09:43:12Z")

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> [@Blake](#):
>
> Any chance of some evidence?

Well, one of my husband’s grandmothers was a full-blood Native by your definition, although admittedly she’s passed away some time ago. Still, _her_ family is still mostly full-bloods, last I heard. I don’t think they’d appreciate me posting their personal information on the internet, however.

I also knew a fellow student in college who was full-blooded Sioux. Well, OK, I didn’t personally research his ancestry but I had no reason to doubt him, either.

Some groups, such as the Hopi and Navajo, probably have a higher percentage of folks who are full-bloods under your definition than some others, but such people certainly do exist.

Sorry, most of my evidence is anecdotal. On the other hand, I find it hard to dispute the existence of living, breathing human beings I personally know.

> [@](#):
>
> To me, it’s very surprising.

Why?

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**Author:** ![Hypnagogic\_Jerk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hypnagogic_jerk/32/4252_2.png) [@Hypnagogic\_Jerk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypnagogic_Jerk)\
**Post date:** [June 18, 2011, 10:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-full-blooded-native-americans-still-exist/585913/8 "2011-06-18T10:45:39Z")

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> [@Broomstick](#):
>
> Why?

Because as you get higher in your family tree, your number of ancestors increases exponentially (well, up to a certain point). And plenty of people don’t know all of their ancestors up to ten or more generations ago, despite the fact that you know people who claim to be full-blooded Indian.

I, for one, am white, and don’t know any non-white ancestors in my family tree. But am I full-blooded white? Probably not. It’s quite likely that I have some native ancestry if you go by the one-drop rule. But I’m unaware of it and I am in no way Indian.

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**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\
**Post date:** [June 18, 2011, 10:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-full-blooded-native-americans-still-exist/585913/9 "2011-06-18T10:59:06Z")

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> [@Broomstick](#):
>
> Sorry, most of my evidence is anecdotal. On the other hand, I find it hard to dispute the existence of living, breathing human beings I personally know.

Well that’s all well and good, but I don’t know them. And from what you say, you yourself don’t actually _know_, you are just taking their word. For a group of people who until recently had extremely low literacy rates and were experiencing severe social breakdown, the chances of knowing heritage for the past 400 years with any sort of certainty is slim. It’s not like there are even any written records for Indians for most of that time. Absent genetic evidence, it seems any claims of 100% heritage would have to be based on “Granny told me” rather than any hard evidence.

Heck, most European Americans can’t trace \*all \*their ancestors back more than five generations, and Europe has really good written records and political stability over that time period. I can’t even imagine how someone \*could \*know all their Indian heritage back beyond the mid 19th century.

> [@](#):
>
> Why?

Several reasons.

Firstly, it’s simple mathematics. For the past 250 years, Indians have made up \<5% of the population of the Americas. So to retain 100% Indian heritage would require some incredibly deliberate reproductive choices. If people simply married at random the chances of retaining 100% Indian heritage over 10 generation is staggeringly small.

Then we add in resistance genetics. Most Indians had no genetic resistance to most old World diseases, and those who did have resistance only had random resistance to individual diseases. The practical upshot of that is that people of pure Indian blood had a greatly reduced chance of survival over people with some Old World introgression. This is a selective pressure that continued unabated until just 50 years ago. As a result, once Old World heritage enters into the potential gene pool anywhere, it is going to multiply far more rapidly than Native American heritage. So basic evolutionary biology says that individuals with no Old World ancestry will be staggeringly rare

Third is status. Basically, Old World immigrants had more money, more possessions, more power and higher status. Even without any other factors, that ensures that they will infiltrate most bloodlines in just a few generations.

So I really would be surprised if there were any people alive today who were of 100% Native American heritage.

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**Author:** ![Quintas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/48db29/32.png) [@Quintas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quintas)\
**Post date:** [June 18, 2011, 11:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-full-blooded-native-americans-still-exist/585913/10 "2011-06-18T11:05:18Z")

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> [@Hypnagogic\_Jerk](#):
>
> And plenty of people don’t know all of their ancestors up to ten or more generations ago

I would guess _most_ people dont know their ancestors beyond 3, occasionally 4 generations.

My great grandfather was born in 1885 (im 38). If a generation is assumed to be 20 years, 10 generations gets me to the mid 1700’s.

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**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\
**Post date:** [June 18, 2011, 11:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-full-blooded-native-americans-still-exist/585913/11 "2011-06-18T11:07:52Z")

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> [@Broomstick](#):
>
> Seriously, is that surprising? There aren’t a lot of them, but they do exist.

Cite? 😃

A 99% full-blood is not the same as a 100% full-blood and many scholars seem convinced the latter do not exist. A “full-blooded” Amerindian would share no recent ancestors with a “full-blooded” Australian or Eurasiatic, but for [example](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Most_recent_common_ancestor)

> [@](#):
>
> With the advent of mathematical models and computer simulations, however, researchers now find that the MRCA of all humans lived remarkably recently, between 2,000 and 4,000 years ago.
> 
> Rohde, Olson, and Chang (2004) constructed a mathematical model that considered the tendency of individuals to choose mates from the same social group, as well as the relative geographical isolation of such groups[4]. The mathematical model with one particular set of parameters showed that the MRCA lived about the year 300 BC …  
> The same 2004 Rohde paper also presented results from a computer program based on Monte Carlo simulation designed to overcome some of the limitations of the mathematical model. The program took into consideration realistic population substructure and migration patterns, allowing the researchers to simulate historical human demography. A conservative simulation yielded a mean MRCA date of 1,415 BC … A less conservative simulation gave an MRCA date of AD 55 …  
> An explanation of this recent MRCA date is that, while humanity’s MRCA was indeed a Paleolithic individual up to early modern times, the European explorers of the 16th and 17th centuries would have fathered enough offspring so that some “mainland” ancestry by today pervades even remote habitats.

Whether post-Columbian European genes penetrated to the deepest parts of the Amazonian jungle may be uncertain. This was debated about a year ago at SDMB, with “probably yes” seeming to be a very rough consensus.

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**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\
**Post date:** [June 18, 2011, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-full-blooded-native-americans-still-exist/585913/12 "2011-06-18T12:51:39Z")

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> [@Quintas](#):
>
> If a generation is assumed to be 20 years, 10 generations gets me to the mid 1700’s.

For genealogical purposes, a generation generally is considered to be 30 years. It seems that over time, the average person was born when their parents were pretty close to 30. YMMV widely, of course. Mine surely does, with one ancestor born to a 14 year old mom, and another born to a 45 year old mom.

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**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\
**Post date:** [June 18, 2011, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-full-blooded-native-americans-still-exist/585913/13 "2011-06-18T14:37:04Z")

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> [@Quintas](#):
>
> I would guess _most_ people dont know their ancestors beyond 3, occasionally 4 generations.

In my husband’s case, they know their ancestry in North America back to the 1740’s, and in Scotland further back yet.

Granted, that is NOT the Native side of the family.

Even so - there are exceptions to every rule. People do not mate entirely at random. While I would be suspicious of claims to 100% Native ancestry in some tribes, there are some, such as the Hopi, which retain sufficient population and were able to remain somewhat autonomous such that I don’t see anything unreasonable with the idea there are genuine full blood individuals still around.

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**Author:** ![Hypnagogic\_Jerk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hypnagogic_jerk/32/4252_2.png) [@Hypnagogic\_Jerk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypnagogic_Jerk)\
**Post date:** [June 18, 2011, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-full-blooded-native-americans-still-exist/585913/14 "2011-06-18T14:37:12Z")

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> [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](#):
>
> It seems that over time, the average person was born when their parents were pretty close to 30. YMMV widely, of course. Mine surely does, with one ancestor born to a 14 year old mom, and another born to a 45 year old mom.

That gives an average age of the mother at birth of 29.5. 😃

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**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\
**Post date:** [June 18, 2011, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-full-blooded-native-americans-still-exist/585913/15 "2011-06-18T14:48:15Z")

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There is a legend in the Menominee Indians (told to me by the last Chief Oshkosh) that when a certain rock in the former reservation is worn completely away by erosion, there will no longer be any full-blooded Menominees left.

The rock is limestone, and weathering fast, but last I heard, still stands. Therefore, I conclude there are still some Menominees.

That’s science as I know it, anyway. 🙂

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**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\
**Post date:** [June 18, 2011, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-full-blooded-native-americans-still-exist/585913/16 "2011-06-18T14:52:03Z")

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> [@Musicat](#):
>
> There is a legend in the Menominee Indians (told to me by the last Chief Oshkosh) that when a certain rock in the former reservation is worn completely away by erosion, there will no longer be any full-blooded Menominees left.
> 
> The rock is limestone, and weathering fast, but last I heard, still stands. Therefore, I conclude there are still some Menominees.
> 
> That’s science as I know it, anyway. 🙂

B’Gosh! 😃

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**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\
**Post date:** [June 18, 2011, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-full-blooded-native-americans-still-exist/585913/17 "2011-06-18T15:25:06Z")

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How about some of the tribes in the depths of the Amazonian rain forest? I should have thought that there was a pretty good chance of finding some “full bloods” amongst them: better than amongst any North American groups, anyway. Or don’t they count a “Native Americans” for the purposes of this thread?

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**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\
**Post date:** [June 18, 2011, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-full-blooded-native-americans-still-exist/585913/18 "2011-06-18T15:26:02Z")

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> [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](#):
>
> For genealogical purposes, a generation generally is considered to be 30 years. It seems that over time, the average person was born when their parents were pretty close to 30.

When doing serious estimates it’s good to remember that fathers are usually older than mothers. A specific example I once worked out was of Queen Victoria’s husband Albert, who was born in 1819.  
His purely patrilineal 23-great grandfather was Dedi of Hessegau, born ca 946, for 35 years per generation.  
His purely matrilineal 23-great grandmother was Ilona Arpad, born ca 1241, for 23 years per generation.

This 12-year father-mother differential is an exaggerated example (due to the mating habits of medieval Central European nobles? 🆒 ). A 5-year differential may be more typical.

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**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\
**Post date:** [June 18, 2011, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-full-blooded-native-americans-still-exist/585913/19 "2011-06-18T15:29:06Z")

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> [@septimus](#):
>
> Whether post-Columbian European genes penetrated to the deepest parts of the Amazonian jungle may be uncertain. This was debated about a year ago at SDMB, with “probably yes” seeming to be a very rough consensus.

> [@njtt](#):
>
> How about some of the tribes in the depths of the Amazonian rain forest?

I knew some right-wing Dopers set **septimus** to _Ignore this User_, but I didn’t know that Guests had that option.

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**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\
**Post date:** [June 18, 2011, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-any-full-blooded-native-americans-still-exist/585913/20 "2011-06-18T16:05:40Z")

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“Guests” certainly have the option to Ignore. I don’t think I could be here otherwise (not that I’m ignoring **septimus** , obviously). 😉

Of course indigenous South Americans _are_ Native Americans, though indeed that is sometimes overlooked in northern-hemispheric discussions.

As to the point, I’d be interested in seeing that thread, which I don’t remember reading. It would be surprising to me if there was evidence, rather than conjecture, supporting that conclusion.

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