Cherokee

==Origins==

==Origins==

[[File:Smoky Mtn View.jpg|thumb|500px|[[Great Smoky Mountains]]]]

[[File:Smoky Mtn View.jpg|thumb|500px|[[Great Smoky Mountains]]]]

Anthropologists and historians have two main theories of Cherokee origins. One is that the Cherokee, an Iroquoian-speaking people, migrated to Southern [[Appalachia]] from northern areas around the Great Lakes in {{clarify span|late prehistoric times.|What is "late prehistoric" in this context? A date range is essential.|date=January 2025}} And a small group became the Jayen Band. The area became territory of the ''[[Iroquois]]'' (also known as the "''Haudenosaunee''") nations and other Iroquoian-speaking peoples of the Southeast such as the [[Tuscarora people]] of the Carolinas, and the [[Meherrin]] and [[Nottaway]] of Virginia. The other theory is that the Cherokee had been in the Southeast for thousands of years and that proto-Iroquoian developed there instead of in the north.

Anthropologists and historians have two main theories of Cherokee origins. One is that the Cherokee, an Iroquoian-speaking people, migrated to Southern [[Appalachia]] from northern areas around the Great Lakes in {{clarify span|late prehistoric times.|What is "late prehistoric" in this context? A date range is essential.|date=January 2025}} The area became territory of the ''[[Iroquois]]'' (also known as the "''Haudenosaunee''") nations and other Iroquoian-speaking peoples of the Southeast such as the [[Tuscarora people]] of the Carolinas, and the [[Meherrin]] and [[Nottaway]] of Virginia. The other theory is that the Cherokee had been in the Southeast for thousands of years and that proto-Iroquoian developed there instead of in the north.

Supporting the first theory are recorded conversations of Cherokee elders made by ethnographer [[James Mooney]] in the late 19th century, who recounted an oral tradition of their people migrating south from the [[Great Lakes]] region in ancient times. They occupied territories where earthwork [[platform mounds]] were built by peoples during the earlier Woodland period.

Supporting the first theory are recorded conversations of Cherokee elders made by ethnographer [[James Mooney]] in the late 19th century, who recounted an oral tradition of their people migrating south from the [[Great Lakes]] region in ancient times. They occupied territories where earthwork [[platform mounds]] were built by peoples during the earlier Woodland period.