[Eternal_Bear]

Linguistics does not necessarily determine genetic inheritance. Mexican Indians speak Spanish, Caucasian Turks speak an Asiatic language related to Mongolian and Black Tuaregs of West Africa and Jews speak Afro-Asiatic languages which share a common ancestry.

A few caucasians joining with a Native American tribe would not leave much of a lingusitic heritage. The Lakotas have genes only found in Scandanavia which may indicate that they intermixed with the Vikings of the West Greenland colony that mysteriously disappeared. There is no linguistic evidence in this case just the genetic evidence.

While Native Americans and Asians are very closely related: pureblood native Americans have a bit more caucasian genetic markers than the Asians do indicating a slight admixture with caucasians occurred. So any caucasian remains found in America would have to be our ancestors since their is no evidence they nigrated to Europe. If Kennewick man had descendants; they are us not you.

[Renfield]

If you are of Cherokee ancestry, you are no more closely related to Kennewick man than am I (100% of my ancestors from various corners of the British Isles). Kennewick man, judging form his physiognomy, was most closely related to the ancestors of the Ainu, of northern Japan. "Indians" of the Pacific Northwest were, both culturally and phylogenically, quite distinct from the Algonkian-speaking peoples. You are no more closely related to Kennewick man than you are to the "true" Indians of South Asia.