Is it 500 or 727?

[Dustparticle]

For a couple of years I always thought there was at least 500 Native American Tribes in USA. If you look at this site: http://500nations.com/tribes/Tribes_State-by-State.asp, there are 500 Native American Tribes in MAINLAND USA. But Alaska has around 227 Tribes. So the total would been 727 tribes altogether.

 

 Plus, I'm doing a lot of research on this. There has to be over a 1,000 Native American Tribes in North America have existed between 1400's - 2000's. Plus, many tribes had several names. Take for instance, the Dakota Tribe had up to 31 names or maybe more. More later.       

Edited May 14, 2015 by Dustparticle

[RaymondG]

Maybe you could work back from how many languages they speak?

Or spoke, as the case may be.