Thank you, earthw7 and sky.
>>None of the above that you mentioned have continuously operated as a tribal entity
In my opinion this is totally random. Or, rather worse than random, it is simply based on when Plague or “Discovery” or Politics decided to start counting. “Federally Recognized” starts counting when this area was “Settled”.
Well before that time there were established groups, trade patterns, currencies, societies and 7,000 years of agreed upon business deals, truths, etc.