First Britons had dark skin: The Cheddar Man

[seeder]

Quote

 

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

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.
Combing human genome reveals roots of hair diversity
Read more

It was initially assumed that Cheddar Man had pale skin and fair hair, but his DNA paints a different picture, strongly suggesting he had blue eyes, a very dark brown to black complexion and dark curly hair.

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

 

 

[Susanc241]

This individual had dark skin, blue eyes, curly hair.  I would be more comfortable with the sweeping assumptions when they have at least three such individuals from different sites that show these same traits (or don’t, as the case may be).

[Lilly]

I have dark hair, medium skin tone and dark blue eyes, but that's my phenotype, not my genotype. Within my genetic line there are people with darker hair/skin/eyes and people with lighter hair/skin/eyes. I'm not so sure one person's phenotype tells us all that much really. 

[acute]

I expected Cheddar Man to have yellow skin.

[Lilly]

8 hours ago, acute said:

I expected Cheddar Man to have yellow skin.

Or better yet, orange! 

[hetrodoxly]

They took DNA from 'Cheddar Man' many years ago out of just 20 people tested in the local village 2 were direct descendants, this article claims canibals living in tha cave 5000 years earlier wern't related to him so they must also have their DNA?

[seeder]

4 minutes ago, hetrodoxly said:

They took DNA from 'Cheddar Man' many years ago out of just 20 people tested in the local village 2 were direct descendants, this article claims canibals living in tha cave 5000 years earlier wern't related to him so they must also have their DNA?

 

the problem is, we just dont find that many skeletons of early brits that are preserved well enough to extract the DNA...... if we had a thousand skeletons to analyse the dna we could build a better picture of the early brits...

[hetrodoxly]

1 hour ago, seeder said:

 

the problem is, we just dont find that many skeletons of early brits that are preserved well enough to extract the DNA...... if we had a thousand skeletons to analyse the dna we could build a better picture of the early brits...

I've been to Cheddar gorge many time and been through all the caves taking great interest in  'Cheddar man' over the years, the claim that he's not related to the 15000 year old inhabitants of the cave must mean they have their DNA how else would they know? and if so it's a much bigger story and you'd have thought it would have been all over the news, did i miss it?

[Bavarian Raven]

I guess Neanderthals don't count as "first" anymore.

 

that being said, it really doesn't matter "who was first ". What matters is who was last / "won" in the end.

 

still a cool find none none the less

[oldrover]

15 hours ago, hetrodoxly said:

They took DNA from 'Cheddar Man' many years ago out of just 20 people tested in the local village 2 were direct descendants, this article claims canibals living in tha cave 5000 years earlier wern't related to him so they must also have their DNA?

That was Bryan Sykes though. He's no noted for his accuracy.

Edited February 8, 2018 by oldrover

[hetrodoxly]

4 hours ago, oldrover said:

That was Bryan Sykes though. He's no noted for his accuracy.

I'd like to see the test done again to see if the children in the village are descendants.

[seeder]

55 minutes ago, hetrodoxly said:

I'd like to see the test done again to see if the children in the village are descendants.

 

who knows for sure.....
 

Quote

 

Meet my ancestor CHEDDAR MAN: Separated by 10,000 years but linked by DNA, the Somerset history teacher who says 'just look at the family resemblance'

    Retired history teacher Adrian Targett believes he looks like Cheddar man
    Cheddar Man is believed to be the nation's oldest Briton who lived in 7,150 BC
    Mr Targett already knows he shares DNA with the skeleton found in 1903
    Now he believes a new image of Cheddar Man shows the family resemblance

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5364983/Retired-history-teacher-believes-looks-like-Cheddar-Man.html#ixzz56Y4UgSq3

 

 

[Essan]

What I find interesting is that he had blue eyes - showing that this was not a mutation in direct association with blonde hair.

So whilst my blonde hair (okay its gone brown now, but I was a blonde as a kid) and pale skin may be down to more recent (Scandinavian?) invaders, my blue eyes might be evidence of direct British ancestry    I am not necessarily entirely a modern migrant

Also, it's worth noting that some early Britons were described as "dark" (the Silures, for example) so basically, to all white supremacists out there : you are the immigrants who need to go home

[Piney]

5 hours ago, Essan said:

What I find interesting is that he had blue eyes - showing that this was not a mutation in direct association with blonde hair.

So whilst my blonde hair (okay its gone brown now, but I was a blonde as a kid) and pale skin may be down to more recent (Scandinavian?) invaders, my blue eyes might be evidence of direct British ancestry    I am not necessarily entirely a modern migrant

Also, it's worth noting that some early Britons were described as "dark" (the Silures, for example) so basically, to all white supremacists out there : you are the immigrants who need to go home

I think that is a different marker for his blue eyes although I once theorized that the "Black Irish" were of hunter-gatherer origin because of the dark hair and blue eyes.

[Unusual Tournament]

On 2/8/2018 at 0:52 AM, acute said:

I expected Cheddar Man to have yellow skin.

actually i thought Cheddar Man would have been more off white and predisposed to extra sharp cows milk.

[hetrodoxly]

17 hours ago, seeder said:

 

who knows for sure.....
 

 

He does look like him, i wonder if they looked at the school teacher before making the model

[hetrodoxly]

17 hours ago, Essan said:

What I find interesting is that he had blue eyes - showing that this was not a mutation in direct association with blonde hair.

So whilst my blonde hair (okay its gone brown now, but I was a blonde as a kid) and pale skin may be down to more recent (Scandinavian?) invaders, my blue eyes might be evidence of direct British ancestry    I am not necessarily entirely a modern migrant

Also, it's worth noting that some early Britons were described as "dark" (the Silures, for example) so basically, to all white supremacists out there : you are the immigrants who need to go home

I also have blue eyes and curly hair and have no trouble getting a tan, we're 'First Nation' those 'Johnny-come-lately' Celts can £"%^ off

[hetrodoxly]

These must all be 'first nation'

 

[oldrover]

17 hours ago, Essan said:

Also, it's worth noting that some early Britons were described as "dark" (the Silures, for example) so basically, to all white supremacists out there : you are the immigrants who need to go home

There's an issue with accepting the Silures were dark though. There's a school of thought that suggests the Romans made out that they were essentially relocated Iberians to explain why they constantly failed to subdue them. Britons weren't considered at that time to be muchto worry about, and during the early phases of the Cluadian invasion you can see why. Until they reached the Silures who were a different story, to the extent that they actually beat the 14th Legion in open battle. Point being that tbis looked bad to be beaten by Britons, but an enemy they dud respect were the Iberians, who'd given them hell previously. So the thinking goes that to save face they claimed that the Silures weren't Britons, but Iberians. 

But don't ask me I'm a Demetae. 

Edited February 9, 2018 by oldrover

[Everdred]

This is one of those cases where they combine a little bit of science with a lot of political propaganda to advance their agenda.

Skin color is not and has never been equivalent to race. Scientists for centuries have relied primarily on cranial morphology to define race, while more recently we've been able to use genetics to define race as well. In this case, despite lacking the two characteristic European mutations for light skin, this man is fully Caucasoid in terms of his skull, and probably genetically more distant from Africans than modern Europeans. That is, racially he was white even though his skin wasn't.

Another problem here is that they're describing him as "dark to black". While they don't appear to have published their study yet, it's likely that he was more of a medium-dark skin tone, rather than the West African black they've chosen to use to advance their agenda. 

Now, these findings are not at all a surprise because we've sequenced several other Western Hunter Gatherers with similar results, and we've sequenced many other ancient specimens to understand the origins of lighter pigmentation. Blue eyes are found earliest in Villabruna man, ~14,000 years old from Northern Italy, and have been found in almost every Mesolithic European yet sequenced. Light skin is found both among Scandinavian/Northeastern European Hunter Gatherers and Anatolian farmers c. 10000-8000 years ago. Their genes for light skin were spread throughout Europe first by the advance of Neolithic farmers from Western Anatolia into Greece and then into much of the rest of Europe. Later, these same genes were spread by the Indo-European migrations from the Steppes that swept through virtually all of Europe. Most British males are direct male-line descendants of the Indo-Europeans (as shown by Y-DNA haplogroup R1b-M269).

Here's a reconstruction of La Brana, the first WHG sequenced and found to have dark skin and blue eyes:

Even though La Brana has the same genetics as Cheddar Man, the less-politically-motivated researchers have used a medium skin tone instead of the dark skin tone chosen for Cheddar Man.

[Ozymandias]

We are all descended from black or dark-skinned people. Our skin colour is an evolutionary adaptation driven by our environment and habitat. There were no white people in Africa when we came down out of the trees and started to walk upright. We should stop depicting Adam and Eve as white - they were black as coal.

[Black Monk]

1 hour ago, Ozymandias said:

We are all descended from black or dark-skinned people. Our skin colour is an evolutionary adaptation driven by our environment and habitat. There were no white people in Africa when we came down out of the trees and started to walk upright.

There are experts who say humanity started in Europe, not Africa.

Quote

We should stop depicting Adam and Eve as white - they were black as coal.

No, they weren't. They were more of a lighter brown colour.

[Ozymandias]

4 minutes ago, Black Monk said:

 They were more of a lighter brown colour.

So they weren't white then? It is all a matter of degree. Generally, black people are not 'black' and white people are not 'white'. Coal is not always black. I used the phrase 'black as coal' to drive home a point: that Adam and Eve were not 'white'.

13 minutes ago, Black Monk said:

There are experts who say humanity started in Europe, not Africa.

One swallow - 'El Graeco' - does not a summer make. Challenging the entire body of palaeontological and genetic evidence based on one isolated find is a little rich and is not good science.

[Black Monk]

29 minutes ago, Ozymandias said:

 

One swallow - 'El Graeco' - does not a summer make. Challenging the entire body of palaeontological and genetic evidence based on one isolated find is a little rich and is not good science.

It does not take away from the fact many experts now believe humanity started off in Europe, not Africa.

Talking about challenging previously-accepted views based on one isolated find - it's no different than saying that all Mesolithic Britons were black just because Cheddar Man was.

[hetrodoxly]

8 hours ago, Ozymandias said:

We are all descended from black or dark-skinned people. Our skin colour is an evolutionary adaptation driven by our environment and habitat. There were no white people in Africa when we came down out of the trees and started to walk upright. We should stop depicting Adam and Eve as white - they were black as coal.

As this been proven? Chimpanzees have white skin.