OK, so, we're kidding about Oscar.
DNA analysis seems to indicate that 95% of all Native Americans are related to six women who lived 20,000 years ago -- but researchers are quick to point out that they don't seem to have all lived at the same time, meaning they probably didn't all just walk over the land bridge and start spitting out the first Cherokees.
The researchers created a "family tree" that traces the different mitochondrial DNA lineages found in today's Native Americans. By noting mutations in each branch and applying a formula for how often such mutations arise, they calculated how old each branch was. That indicated when each branch arose in a single woman.
The six "founding mothers" apparently did not live in Asia because the DNA signatures they left behind aren't found there, Perego said. They probably lived in Beringia, the now-submerged land bridge that stetched to North America, he said. [...]
That [...] doesn't answer the bigger questions of where those women lived, or of how many people left Beringia to colonize the Americas, she said Thursday.
Any of y'all out there consider yourselves American Indians? Well, hey there! We're about half-American Indian ourselves -- at least, that's what it says on our adoption papers -- so to you we say: quit lying to yourselves. You're so just white.