Hello Malky. No on the African roots for native Americans except in the sense that we all have African roots if we go back far enough. American Indians show up in DNA tests as having an Asian profile, as had been assumed by many.
There is an excellent National Geographic program called "Journey of Man: a Genetic Odyssey on youtube. It explains quite a bit in 2 hours in nicely digestible 10 minute chunks.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OV6A8oGtPc4
I recall one thing pointed out in this film was that many native Americans did not want to be tested since they didn't want hear anything that might negate their creation myths.
Nick
This is interesting as sometime in 2011, or late 2010, there was a TV programme that explored the possibility of some native Americans arriving in the Americas via an Atlantic crosssing.
I can not remember the name of the programme, but by posting this hopefully someone will recall it.
Basically the hypothesis of the programme was that some ancient Europeans crossed the Atlantic by edging across the retreating Ice sheet ie walk a bit, sail a bit sort of thing. They used DNA analysis (mtDNA I think) to prove there were native Americans who had been their a long time but had not come via Asia. They also used archaeological techniques to explain some of the artefact's native Americans had but would not be expected to have had.
OK sorry if that is all a bit vague, but the programme was very good and uses a good bit of scientific fact as opposed to assumption. Hopefully someone will recall its name .....
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