The Cheddar Man
The Cheddar Man. Cheddar Man is a human male fossil found in Gough's Cave in Cheddar Gorge, Somerset, England. The skeletal remains date to the Mesolithic (ca. 9100 BP, 7100 BC) and it appears that he died a violent death. A large craters like lesion just above the skull's right orbit suggests that the man may have also been suffering from a bone infection. Excavated in 1903, Cheddar Man is Britain's oldest complete human skeleton. The remains are kept by London's Natural History Museum, in the Human Evolution gallery. Analysis of his nuclear DNA indicates that he was a typical member of the Western European hunter-gatherer population at the time, with lactose intolerance, probably with light-coloured eyes (most likely green but possibly blue or hazel), dark brown or black hair, and dark or dark-to-black skin, although an intermediate skin colour cannot be ruled out. Nuclear DNA was extracted from the petrous part of the temporal bone by a team from the Natural History ...