Meet Cheddar Man, he’s a 10,000-year-old hunter-gatherer from Somerset and is quite literally changing the face of history. No, he wasn’t made of Cheddar Cheese; he was discovered in 1903 at Gough’s Cave in Cheddar Gorge, Somerset. Cheddar Man is a fascinating reminder to all of us that assumptions should never be made about the colour of people’s skin.
Ancient DNA taken from the remains of his almost complete skeleton has helped Museum scientists paint a portrait of one of the oldest modern humans in Britain. Cheddar Man’s DNA has the genetic markers of skin pigmentation usually associated with sub-Saharan Africa.
The findings have shaped the way we have viewed the evolution of Homo sapiens. The latest research on his DNA has revealed that some of the earliest modern human inhabitants of Britain may not have looked the way you might expect.
Dr Tom Booth, a postdoctoral researcher, said that ‘Until recently it was always assumed that humans quickly adapted to have paler skin after entering Europe about 45,000 years ago.
‘Pale skin is better at absorbing UV light and helps humans avoid vitamin D deficiency in climates with less sunlight.’
‘He is just one person, but also indicative of the population of Europe at the time,’ says Tom. ‘They had dark skin and most of them had pale coloured eyes, either blue or green, and dark brown hair.’
‘Cheddar Man subverts people’s expectations of what kinds of genetic traits go together,’ he adds.
‘It seems that pale eyes entered Europe long before pale skin or blond hair, which didn’t come along until after the arrival of farming.’
‘He reminds us that you can’t make assumptions about what people looked like in the past based on what people look like in the present and that the pairings of features we are used to seeing today aren’t something that’s fixed.’
When Cheddar man was first found, there were claims that he was the long-sought earliest Englishman, with exaggerated dates of 40,000-80,000 years. But subsequent radiocarbon dating from the 1970s onwards suggests he lived around 10,000 years ago.
Cheddar Man’s burial site is quite unusual because it is believed that at a time he lived communal burials were the normal practise, whereas he was found alone.
Coaxing data from ancient DNA is by no means an easy task. Dr Selina Brace, an ancient DNA specialist said, ‘Ancient DNA doesn’t necessarily mean that the specimen you’re working with is thousands of years old,’ Selina explains. ‘It just means that the DNA is degraded.’
‘To extract ancient DNA from a human or animal what you’re looking for is a dense bone which might have protected the DNA inside it as much as possible.’
‘We used to use leg bones or teeth as the thick bones and enamel keep DNA quite intact, but in the last two years, we’ve shifted to using the petrous, or inner ear bone, which is the densest bone in the human body.
The model of Cheddar Man was made by Kennis & Kennis Reconstructions who specialise in palaeontological reconstructions. The artists took measurements of the skeleton, scanned the skull and 3D printed a base for their model.
