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The Modern Antiquarian Forum » The wonders of DNA testing |
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Sanctuary 4670 posts |
Feb 07, 2018, 08:45
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https://uk.yahoo.com/news/dna-shows-first-modern-briton-had-dark-skin-003118447.html
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moss 2897 posts |
Feb 07, 2018, 09:14
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Beat me to it, it is also in the Guardian and there is to be a Channel 4 documentary on it as well. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/feb/07/first-modern-britons-dark-black-skin-cheddar-man-dna-analysis-reveals
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Monganaut 2370 posts |
Edited Feb 07, 2018, 16:36
Feb 07, 2018, 16:34
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Fascinating discovery. If the majority of Western Euroupe are now white, just shows how quickly evolutionary adaptions can take effect when needed. 10 000 odd years is the blink of an eye. Are the samples from the same bones that the bloke living in Cheddar shared DNA with, if so, would be fun to have an interview with him again. May go som of the way to explaining why some Afghan hill tribes have striking blue eyes. Maybe it wasn't Alexander the Greats army after all, but a small evolutionary shift long before. Mind you, I read a book which came to the conclusion that most of Western Europe were decended from I think it was 5 or 7 'original' females. As I recall, one was from the Russian Steppes region, one was from the Greecian region, a couple were from the Middle East / Turkey, and I forget where the other few originated.
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nigelswift 8112 posts |
Feb 07, 2018, 16:45
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I seem to remember "the bloke living in Cheddar shared DNA" was a big story years ago but was then denied on the grounds that all of us have the same DNA connection to him as the people of Cheddar. Great that he was dark skinned though. One in the eye for the "indigenous English" lot.
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tjj 3606 posts |
Edited Feb 07, 2018, 18:04
Feb 07, 2018, 18:00
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You cannot help but be fascinated by this story as it all over the newspapers as well as internet (NewsThump having a field day). Found myself looking back to the Paviland 'Lady' whose red ochre covered bones predate Cheddar Man by some 20,000 plus years. Stephen Moss for the Guardian stayed in the cave a few years back and wrote a piece which is still an interesting read. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2011/apr/25/paviland-cave-red-lady What jumped out at me while reading was this paragraph ... The bones, stained red, are laid out in boxes, but you have no sense of the body, which is reckoned to have been 6ft tall, narrow-hipped and gracile – more African than European in body type and typical of a man who had to cover huge distances on foot.
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tomatoman 118 posts |
Feb 09, 2018, 16:12
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It IS wonderful that, after over 100 years let alone the aeons before, such DNA detail can be extracted. Yes, the media are all over it for obvious reasons. BUT.....the skeleton was a lone individual found with traumatic injuries. Someone will correct me if I'm mistaken, but there's no evidence that the individual was necessarily a "local resident". If I'm correct in this, until another equivalent example is found, we may have all leapt to an understandable, but unjustified conclusion about the nature of our forbears.
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tjj 3606 posts |
Edited Feb 09, 2018, 17:49
Feb 09, 2018, 17:47
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tomatoman wrote: It IS wonderful that, after over 100 years let alone the aeons before, such DNA detail can be extracted. Yes, the media are all over it for obvious reasons. BUT.....the skeleton was a lone individual found with traumatic injuries. Someone will correct me if I'm mistaken, but there's no evidence that the individual was necessarily a "local resident". If I'm correct in this, until another equivalent example is found, we may have all leapt to an understandable, but unjustified conclusion about the nature of our forbears. I wouldn't dream of correcting you T, whatever I know has been inspired by reading this forum and its a loss that the knowledgeable people who used to post here don't any more. From what I understand the population - up until the land bridge between ancient Britain and the rest of Europe flooded some 8,000 years ago - was made up of hunter-gatherers ... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12244964 "At the time it was home to a fragile and scattered population of about 5,000 hunter-gatherers, descended from the early humans who had followed migrating herds of mammoth and reindeer onto the jagged peninsula". I imagine they were nomadic and used to travelling great distances on foot.
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moss 2897 posts |
Edited Feb 10, 2018, 09:38
Feb 10, 2018, 09:32
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tomatoman wrote: It IS wonderful that, after over 100 years let alone the aeons before, such DNA detail can be extracted. Yes, the media are all over it for obvious reasons. BUT.....the skeleton was a lone individual found with traumatic injuries. Someone will correct me if I'm mistaken, but there's no evidence that the individual was necessarily a "local resident". If I'm correct in this, until another equivalent example is found, we may have all leapt to an understandable, but unjustified conclusion about the nature of our forbears. Perhaps there is too much news, in the end whenever I put anything up, a need to qualify with words such as 'speculation', 'hype' or even 'fake' just because someone wants to gather an audience. Blick Mead is everywhere in news, used to stop the Stonehenge tunnel, but 'auroch footsteps' mmmm. As for Cheddar man my scepticism is still out at the moment.
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Sanctuary 4670 posts |
Feb 10, 2018, 10:03
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moss wrote: tomatoman wrote: It IS wonderful that, after over 100 years let alone the aeons before, such DNA detail can be extracted. Yes, the media are all over it for obvious reasons. BUT.....the skeleton was a lone individual found with traumatic injuries. Someone will correct me if I'm mistaken, but there's no evidence that the individual was necessarily a "local resident". If I'm correct in this, until another equivalent example is found, we may have all leapt to an understandable, but unjustified conclusion about the nature of our forbears. Perhaps there is too much news, in the end whenever I put anything up, a need to qualify with words such as 'speculation', 'hype' or even 'fake' just because someone wants to gather an audience. Blick Mead is everywhere in news, used to stop the Stonehenge tunnel, but 'auroch footsteps' mmmm. As for Cheddar man my scepticism is still out at the moment. I think we are so used to 'facts' being overturned on a regular basis that we all have a right to be sceptical. SH is the prime example.
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Sanctuary 4670 posts |
Feb 17, 2018, 09:29
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Heads up... The First Brit: Secrets of the 10,000 Year Old Man, Channel 4 at 8pm on 18th February.
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