One Choctaw origin story relates how in pre-historic times the Choctaw people lived in areas near or around what is now known as the Yucatan Peninsula. This story explains that when the ancient South American homeland of the Choctaw people became overcrowded many of them sailed across the sea to the land of present-day Alabama and Mississippi in North America. (Caitlin, Letters and Notes, 1841) A Choctaw origin in South America is supported by DNA evidence as well as the similarities between the beliefs, art, and customs of the people of the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex in North America and the Indigenous peoples of South America. The ancestral people of the Choctaw and other indigenous peoples in North America have participated in the evolution of their respective North American cultures for hundreds and even thousands of years. However, the Choctaw people as they are known today are believed to have coalesced during the 16th century. The original peoples involved in this coalescence likely formed in Alabama and were made up of populations such as the Plaquemine culture. Prior to their arrival in the Americas the founding populations of both North and South American indigenous peoples are generally explained to be Beringian populations broken down into several groups which are illuminated within the fields of Archeology, Anthropology, and Genomics. Technological advances have provided breakthroughs in the genetic history of the Indigenous peoples of North and South America. Until modern times the connection between North and South American indigenous people was unknown in modern scholarship.
One Choctaw origin story relates how in pre-historic times the Choctaw people lived in areas near or around what is now known as the Yucatan Peninsula. This story explains that when the ancient South American homeland of the Choctaw people became overcrowded many of them sailed across the sea to the land of present-day Alabama and Mississippi in North America. (Caitlin Letters and Notes, 1841) A Choctaw origin in South America is supported by DNA evidence as well as the similarities between the beliefs, art, and customs of the people of the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex in North America and the Indigenous peoples of South America. The ancestral people of the Choctaw and other indigenous peoples in North America have participated in the evolution of their respective North American cultures for hundreds and even thousands of years. However, the Choctaw people as they are known today are believed to have coalesced during the 16th century. The original peoples involved in this coalescence likely formed in Alabama and were made up of populations such as the Plaquemine culture. Prior to their arrival in the Americas the founding populations of both North and South American indigenous peoples are generally explained to be Beringian populations broken down into several groups which are illuminated within the fields of Archeology, Anthropology, and Genomics. Technological advances have provided breakthroughs in the genetic history of the Indigenous peoples of North and South America. Until modern times the connection between North and South American indigenous people was unknown in modern scholarship.