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The model of Cheddar Man rendered by Kennis & Kennis
Reconstructions (Image: ©Tom Barnes/Channel 4)
Recently, world media has been abuzz with the news that our earliest ancestors were dark skinned and had blue eyes.
A 10,000-year-old hunter had
“dark to black” skin, a groundbreaking DNA analysis of Britain’s oldest
complete skeleton has revealed. The Cheddar Man fossil was unearthed in
Gough’s Cave in Somerset over a century ago. He was one
of the first settlers to have crossed Doggerland, the land bridge from
continental Europe to Britain, after the glaciers began receding at the end
of the last ice age.
A Team of scientists using the
latest genetic sequencing technology located the genes linked to skin and hair colour
and texture, and eye colour and discovered he had a “dark to black” skin tone
and blue eyes.
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Reassembled skeleton of Cheddar Man, the oldest complete
skeleton found in the UK. (Image: Natural History Museum )
Cheddar Man
is the oldest almost complete skeleton of our species, Homo sapiens,
ever found in Britain. Most of the Mesolithic human remains that date to
this period were discovered in caves and there is a strong tradition of cave
burial in the region.
'About a mile up the road from where Cheddar Man was found, there is
another cave known as Aveline's Hole which is one of the biggest Mesolithic
cemeteries in Britain. Archaeologists found the remains of about 50
individuals, all deposited over a short period of 100-200 years,' says Dr Tom Booth,
a postdoctoral researcher working closely with the Natural History Museum's
human remains collection to investigate human adaptation to changing
environments.
Scientists believe that northern
European peoples became lighter-skinned over time because pale skin absorbs
more sunlight. These findings suggest that pale skinned people emerged with the
advent of farming, at a time when people were obtaining less vitamin D from
oily fish. We now know the genes for lighter skinned European populations
spread far later than originally thought. These
findings show that people of white British ancestry alive today, are direct
descendants of this black population.
'Until recently it was always assumed that humans quickly adapted to
have paler skin after entering Europe about 45,000 years ago,' says Dr Booth.
'Pale skin is better at absorbing UV light and helps humans avoid vitamin D
deficiency in climates with less sunlight.'
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The Skull of Cheddar Man.
(Image: Natural History Museum )
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Scientists now believe that pale
skin probably arrived in Britain with a migration of people from the Middle
East around 6,000 years ago. These people had pale skin and brown eyes and
absorbed populations like the ones Cheddar Man belonged to. No-one's entirely
sure why pale skin evolved in these farmers, but their cereal-based diet was
probably deficient in Vitamin D. This would have required agriculturalists to
absorb this essential nutrient from sunlight through their skin.
Modern
humans were in Britain as early as 40,000 years ago, but a period of extreme
cold known as the Last Glacial Maximum drove them out some 10,000 years later. There's
evidence from Gough's Cave that hunter-gatherers ventured back about 15,000
years ago, establishing a temporary presence when the climate briefly improved.
However, they were soon forced to leave again by another cold period. Britain was
once again settled 11,000 years ago and has been inhabited ever since.
Researchers extracted DNA from
Cheddar Man, who was discovered in 1903. The DNA results suggest Cheddar Man
could not drink milk as an adult. This capability only spread much later, after
the beginning of the Bronze Age. Present-day Europeans owe on average 10% of
their ancestry to Mesolithic hunters like Cheddar Man. Analysis of his genome
reveals he was closely related to other Mesolithic individuals or Western
Hunter-Gatherers who have been examined from Spain, Luxembourg, and Hungary.
In 1997, it was reported that a
living descendant of Cheddar Man had been found. The DNA of Adrian Targett, who
was 42 years old when that discovery was made, was found to match that
belonging to Cheddar Man. Both Targett and Cheddar Man share a common maternal
ancestor.
Within Gough’s Cave, scientists
have found numerous human and animal remains with clearly visible signs of
butchery. The human remains belonged to around 5 or 7 people, including a
three-year-old child and two adolescents. All of them had cut-marks and
breakage consistent with defleshing and eating.
According to scientists, the
remains do not display any evidence of violence prior to death, so the people
who were consumed were not killed and eaten because of conflict. Scientists
concluded that this was an example either of cannibalism or the removal of
flesh from bones after death, which was occasionally done for ritualistic
purposes.
These people died during the Ice
Age, when food resources were very limited, which may explain the necessity to
consume human remains. The researchers suggest that people from the Gough's
Cave used cups made from skulls as part of ritual practices.
Scientists from the Natural
History Museum in London and University College London (UCL) compared hundreds
of cut-marks found on both human and animal bones at Gough’s Cave. After
examining the engravings on a human bone, they concluded that cannibals ate
their relatives and then performed ritualistic burials with the remains.
Conclusion
One of the first settlers to arrive
in Britain from continental Europe 10,000 years ago had dark skin and blue eyes.
Cheddar Man is the oldest almost complete skeleton of our species, Homo
sapiens, ever found in Britain. These findings show that people of white
British ancestry alive today, are direct descendants of this black population. Present-day
Europeans owe on average 10% of their ancestry to Mesolithic hunters like
Cheddar Man.
For further information please see:
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/cheddar-man-mesolithic-britain-blue-eyed-boy.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5IGI1CxONs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5IGI1CxONs
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