The Prehistoric Migrations of the Cherokee

Abstract

This article presents a reassessment of archaeological and anthropological articles, lexicostatistical glottochronology, genetic probability affinities, and traditional Cherokee legends to describe the origin and migrations of the Cherokee people. The scenario begins with the Cherokee migrating from their first homeland in middle North America along the Mississippi River to the Greater Southwest around 2800 B. P. Then they began migrating to the southern Great Plains around A.D. 900. A third migration around A.D. 1500 brought them to the Fort Ancient region along the Ohio River. By A.D. 1600, hostile neighbors forced them south across the Ohio River into the Allegheny Mountain ranges of the Southeast. Finally in the late A.D. 1830s, the Cherokee were forced to migrate back to their ancestral homeland in Arkansas and Oklahoma.