'Cheddar Man', Britain’s oldest, nearly complete human skeleton, had dark skin, blue eyes and dark curly hair when he lived in what is now southwest England 10,000 years ago. Three hundred generations later, around 10 per cent of indigenous British ancestry can be linked to Cheddar Man’s people, scientists say. The DNA was unusually well-preserved, enabling the scientists to sequence Cheddar Man’s genome for the first time and to analyze it to establish aspects of his appearance. The model, which UCL and the Natural History Museum said rendered Cheddar Man’s face with unprecedented accuracy, shows a man with dark skin, high cheekbones, blue eyes and coarse black hair. Selina Brace, one of the Natural History Museum’s ancient DNA experts who took part in sequencing Cheddar Man’s genome, was quoted as saying the model was “really, really cool”.

Source: The Star February 07, 2018 10:52 UTC