First modern Britons had 'dark to black' skin, Cheddar Man DNA analysis reveals

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The genome of Cheddar Man, who lived 10,000 years ago, suggests that he had blue eyes, dark skin and dark curly hair

The first modern Britons, who lived about 10,000 years ago, had “dark to black” skin, a groundbreaking DNA analysis of Britain’s oldest complete skeleton has revealed.

The fossil, known as Cheddar Man, was unearthed more than a century ago in Gough’s Cave in Somerset. Intense speculation has built up around Cheddar Man’s origins and appearance because he lived shortly after the first settlers crossed from continental Europe to Britain at the end of the last ice age. People of white British ancestry alive today are descendants of this population.

(...)


Tom Booth, an archaeologist at the Natural History Museum who worked on the project, said: “It really shows up that these imaginary racial categories that we have are really very modern constructions, or very recent constructions, that really are not applicable to the past at all.”


Yoan Diekmann, a computational biologist at University College London and another member of the project’s team, agreed, saying the connection often drawn between Britishness and whiteness was “not an immutable truth. It has always changed and will change”.



The findings were revealed ahead of a Channel 4 documentary, which tracked the ancient DNA project at the Natural History Museum in London as well as creating a new forensic reconstruction of Cheddar Man’s head.


To perform the DNA analysis, museum scientists drilled a 2mm-diameter hole into the ancient skull to obtain a few milligrams of bone powder. From this, they were able to extract a full genome, which held clues about this ancient relative’s appearance and lifestyle.


The results pointed to a Middle Eastern origin for Cheddar Man, suggesting that his ancestors would have left Africa, moved into the Middle East and later headed west into Europe, before eventually crossing the ancient land bridge called Doggerland which connected Britain to continental Europe. Today, about 10% of white British ancestry can be linked to this ancient population.
The analysis also ruled out an ancestral link with individuals inhabiting Gough’s Cave 5,000 years earlier, who appear to have performed grisly cannibalistic rituals, including gnawing on human toes and fingers – possibly after boiling them – and drinking from polished skull cups.


Britain was periodically settled and then cleared during ice ages until the end of the last glacial period about 11,700 years ago, since when it has been continuously inhabited.


(...)

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Source: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/feb/07/first-modern-britons-dark-black-skin-cheddar-man-dna-analysis-reveals



 
I think there's some exaggeration going on here. Black skin?

I'd have to see all the snps, but he might have typical WHG like snps.
 
I think there's some exaggeration going on here. Black skin?

I'd have to see all the snps, but he might have typical WHG like snps.


Yes, absolutely possible. Moreover, these findings seem not based on a peer-reviewed paper but on a Channel 4 documentary.

Cheddar man may have been no different from other WHG found and analyzed.

I'm still looking for any paper out, but so far I have not found anything.
 
The results pointed to a Middle Eastern origin for Cheddar Man, suggesting that his ancestors would have left Africa, moved into the Middle East and later headed west into Europe, before eventually crossing the ancient land bridge called Doggerland which connected Britain to continental Europe. Today, about 10% of white British ancestry can be linked to this ancient population.

How did they determine that WHG came from the Middle East ? is there any evidence of that ?
 
The mtDNA of Cheddar Man is U5a

I've read that there were concerns that that result was from contamination caused by a researcher. Have they re-tested and confirmed that Cheddar Man's mtDNA is U5a? And what about his yDNA?
 
I've read that there were concerns that that result was from contamination caused by a researcher. Have they re-tested and confirmed that Cheddar Man's mtDNA is U5a? And what about his yDNA?

Got that from Eupedia:
The Cheddar Man (subclade U5a): the remains of a Mesolithic man found in Gough's Cave in Cheddar Gorge, Somerset, England. It is Britain's oldest complete human skeleton.
I don’t know about the Y.
https://www.eupedia.com/europe/Haplogroup_U5_mtDNA.shtml
 
I think there's some exaggeration going on here. Black skin?

I'd have to see all the snps, but he might have typical WHG like snps.

so do I
they painted him a lot darker than the La Brana WHG reconstruction
WHG did have straight hair too

and if they checked all this phenotype DNA, why didn't they check autosomal to see if he clusterd with Villabruna, and his uniparental DNA?
 
'The results pointed to a Middle Eastern origin for Cheddar Man, suggesting that his ancestors would have left Africa, moved into the Middle East and later headed west into Europe, before eventually crossing the ancient land bridge called Doggerland which connected Britain to continental Europe.'

I wonder how they figured this out.
The whole thing seems more a show off on TV than a scientific expedition to me.
 
Yes, this is a "re-do". They've re-sequenced everything. The paper won't be out for a while. It's Chris Stringer in the video, so I don't think this is some botched up job.

I don't think it should be a surprise that "Cheddar Man" was a WHG and, as such, would lack the derived versions of pigmentation snps which seem to lighten the skin color in modern West Eurasians, and particularly in Europeans.

As a result, unless by some chance WHG carried some sort of convergent de-pigmentation snps so far unidentified, he would indeed have been darker than any modern West Eurasians.

Even if that's the case, though, saying he had "black" skin seems to me to be going a bit far. There was progressive de-pigmentation with the movement out of Africa. KITLG, for example, seems to have been a major factor only out of Africa. However, if it isn't reporter mis-speak, they seem to have the full genome, so I don't know what they found. Maybe he lacks any of the de-pigmentation varieties. We'll have to wait and see.

As to coming from the "Middle East", this may be a reference to how WHG came into Europe. We'll have to see about that too, unless more happens to be released before the paper.
 
'The results pointed to a Middle Eastern origin for Cheddar Man, suggesting that his ancestors would have left Africa, moved into the Middle East and later headed west into Europe, before eventually crossing the ancient land bridge called Doggerland which connected Britain to continental Europe.'

I wonder how they figured this out.
The whole thing seems more a show off on TV than a scientific expedition to me.

Is there not only 2 basic eye colours ! , african brown and caucasus blue ( everything else comes from these 2 mixing ) ...........if he has blue eyes , he ( or ancestors ) could have moved south into the middle east before heading to the british isles
 
Yes, this is a "re-do". They've re-sequenced everything. The paper won't be out for a while. It's Chris Stringer in the video, so I don't think this is some botched up job.

I don't think it should be a surprise that "Cheddar Man" was a WHG and, as such, would lack the derived versions of pigmentation snps which seem to lighten the skin color in modern West Eurasians, and particularly in Europeans.

As a result, unless by some chance WHG carried some sort of convergent de-pigmentation snps so far unidentified, he would indeed have been darker than any modern West Eurasians.

Even if that's the case, though, saying he had "black" skin seems to me to be going a bit far. There was progressive de-pigmentation with the movement out of Africa. KITLG, for example, seems to have been a major factor only out of Africa. However, if it isn't reporter mis-speak, they seem to have the full genome, so I don't know what they found. Maybe he lacks any of the de-pigmentation varieties. We'll have to wait and see.

As to coming from the "Middle East", this may be a reference to how WHG came into Europe. We'll have to see about that too, unless more happens to be released before the paper.

Oh, forgot...since it's a re-do it's definitely some form of mtDna U5. I guess we're looking at "I" or "C" in terms of y-Dna.
 
I do see the WHG on him, but I do agree that black skin is a bit exaggerated
 
Oh, forgot...since it's a re-do it's definitely some form of mtDna U5. I guess we're looking at "I" or "C" in terms of y-Dna.



C. G. Seligman and F. G. Parsons; The Cheddar Man: A Skeleton of Late Palaeolithic Date. The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland
Vol. 44 (Jul. - Dec., 1914), pp. 241-263


https://www.jstor.org/stable/2843352?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

Cheddar_Man_scull.jpg


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheddar_Man

EMB-The-First-Brit-Secrets-Of-The-10000-Year-Old-Man-screening.jpg




E. K. 1975. Problems of "The Cheddar Man", Gough's Cave, Somerset. Proc. Unfa Bristol Spelaeol. Soc, 14(1), 7-23.

http://www.ubss.org.uk/resources/proceedings/vol14/UBSS_Proc_14_1_7-23.pdf
 
Another "Cheddar Man" reconstruction, this model was created at the University of Manchester.

Reconstruction of the head of Cheddar Man from a complete male skeleton found in Gough’s Cave of Cheddar Gorge, Somerset and dates to about 9,000 years ago. The skeleton was discovered in 1903 and is the oldest complete human skeleton from the United Kingdom. This model was created at the University of Manchester.

source: http://www.sciencephoto.com/media/476884/view

7b96f4b824f56e6d0ff91c4239f31021--male-skeleton-university-of-manchester.jpg
 
That one doesn't resemble the other all that much
 

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