Cheddar Man, Mesolithic Britain

[Peterski]

I have uploaded him to GEDmatch Genesis:

Cheddar Man England 7150 BC, GEDmatch Genesis kit number - NW6414429

Eurogenes K36:

137669 SNPs used in this evaluation

Population
Amerindian -
Arabian -
Armenian -
Basque 8.81 Pct
Central_African -
Central_Euro -
East_African -
East_Asian -
East_Balkan -
East_Central_Asian -
East_Central_Euro 17.68 Pct
East_Med -
Eastern_Euro 9.69 Pct
Fennoscandian 36.88 Pct
French -
Iberian -
Indo-Chinese -
Italian -
Malayan -
Near_Eastern -
North_African -
North_Atlantic 7.78 Pct
North_Caucasian -
North_Sea 19.15 Pct
Northeast_African -
Oceanian -
Omotic -
Pygmy -
Siberian -
South_Asian -
South_Central_Asian -
South_Chinese -
Volga-Ural -
West_African -
West_Caucasian -
West_Med -

Similarity Map:

https://i.imgur.com/21TlwPH.png

[frankhammer]

So where did the brown skin come from? Artistic licence?

[Mingle]

So where did the brown skin come from? Artistic licence?

It wasn't artistic license. It was just a premature guess not based on conclusive evidence.


A Briton who lived 10,000 years ago had dark brown skin and blue eyes. At least, that’s what dozens of news stories published this month – including our own – stated as fact. But one of the geneticists who performed the research says the conclusion is less certain, and according to others we are not even close to knowing the skin colour of any ancient human.

The skeleton of Cheddar Man was discovered in 1903 in a cave in south-east England where it had lain for 10,000 years.

Until a few weeks ago, he had always been depicted with pale skin. This makes some sense, given that people living at northern latitudes often have paler skins. The explanation may be that it allows more of the weak northerly sunlight into their skin, so they can make enough vitamin D. And it seems our species reached Europe 30,000 years before Cheddar Man lived, so his ancestors would have had plenty of time to evolve paler skins.

But the new DNA analysis suggests that Cheddar Man may have had dark skin. Most news stories said his skin was “dark to black”.

Giveaway genes

To show this, researchers including Susan Walsh at Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis read Cheddar Man’s DNA. Walsh had helped develop a model that attempts to predict someone’s eye, hair and skin pigmentation solely from their DNA, and the team applied this model to Cheddar Man.

The most recent version of the model was published in May 2017. It focuses on 36 spots in 16 genes, all linked to skin colour.

To test it, Walsh and her colleagues took genetic data from over 1400 people, mainly from Europe and the US but also some from Africa and Papua New Guinea. The team used part of the data to “train” their model on how skin colour and the 36 DNA markers are linked. They then used the rest of the data to test how well the model could predict skin colour from DNA alone. The model correctly identified who had “light” skin or “dark-black” skin, with a small margin of error.

When Walsh and her colleagues applied the model to Cheddar Man, they concluded his skin colour fell between “dark” and “dark to black”.

Not so sure

The research was first announced by press release, to coincide with the release of a TV documentary. It has now been posted to a preprint server.

Walsh stresses that the study doesn’t conclusively demonstrate Cheddar Man had dark to black skin. We cannot place such confidence in the DNA analysis, she says. For one thing, Cheddar Man’s DNA has degraded over the last 10,000 years.

“It’s not a simple statement of ‘this person was dark-skinned’,” says Walsh. “It is his most probable profile, based on current research.”

In fact, we are not ready to predict the skin colour of prehistoric people just from their genes, says Brenna Henn at Stony Brook University, New York. That’s because the genetics of skin pigmentation turn out to be more complex than thought.

Too many genes

In November 2017, Henn and her colleagues published a paper exploring the genetics of skin pigmentation in populations indigenous to southern Africa – where skin colour varies more than many people appreciate. Just weeks before, a group led by Sarah Tishkoff at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia had published a paper on the genetics of skin pigmentation in people from eastern and southern Africa.

“The conclusions were really the same,” says Henn. “Known skin pigmentation genes, discovered primarily in East Asian and European populations, don’t explain the variation in skin pigmentation in African populations. The idea that there are really only about 15 genes underlying skin pigmentation isn’t correct.”

It now seems likely that many other genes affect skin colour. We don’t know how.

If we are still learning about the link between genes and skin pigmentation in living populations, we can’t yet predict the skin colour of prehistoric people, says Henn.

This debate may seem of little practical importance – although the idea that Cheddar Man was dark-skinned generated enormous public interest. However, we need to know the limitations of this sort of genetic technology.

Police could one day plug DNA from a crime scene into one of these models to determine what a suspect looks like. Walsh’s model might succeed at this in the US, says Henn, because it was trained on DNA from people with similar ancestry to North Americans. But it may well fail elsewhere.

Henn’s team has tested an older model that aimed to predict skin colour from DNA. When they put it to work among southern African populations, “it literally predicted that people with the darkest skins would have the lightest skin”

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg23731674-500-ancient-dark-skinned-briton-cheddar-man-find-may-not-be-true/

Here's an interesting video on the topic that goes into detail if you're interested:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DClY5pR7GX8

[Peterski]

I uploaded him to DNA Land, let's see what they report, how much coffee did he drink, etc. :D


So where did the brown skin come from? Artistic licence?

I checked some of his pigmentation SNPs, but it is possible that I missed some other:

Cheddar Man's skin pigmentation SNPs:

rs1426654(G;G) ---> G is darker skin, modern Northern Europeans have A;A here
rs16891982(C;C) ---> C allele is darker skin, also 7x more likely to have black hair
rs1408799(C;C) ---> C is lighter pigmentation & higher skin cancer risk in Europeans (per SNPedia)
rs1834640(A;A) --> associated with skin pigmentation (modern Europeans have A;A too)
rs1800414(A;A) ---> G associated with East Asian type light skin, Non-Asians have A
rs885479(G;G) ---> A associated with East Asian type light skin, Non-Asians have G
rs12203592(T;T) ---> T associated with less tanning ability, common in Irish people
rs1015362(G;G) ---> G associated with less tanning ability, Sub-Saharans have A;A

Cheddar Man's hair & eye pigmentation:

rs1667394(A;A) ---> A;A is blond hair and blue eyes 4x more likely
rs12896399(G;G) ---> G;G genotype associated with lighter hair color
rs12913832(G;G) ---> people with G;G blue eye color 99% of the time
rs12203592(T;T) ---> T causes lighter hair & eyes, less tanning ability
rs1800401(C;C) ---> C associated with blue/gray eyes possibility
rs1800407(G;G) ---> G associated with blue/gray eyes possibility
rs7495174(A;A) ---> A associated with blue/gray eyes more likely

He lacked the first 2 listed skin depigmentation mutations that modern Europeans have. But he had some other depigmentation mutations, so I don't think that he was "black". Maybe he had a skin tone similar to what you can find today in North India, Pakistan, etc. I also don't think he was blond-haired. He had some genes which increase the likelihood of blond hair, but he also had others which increase the likelihood of black hair, I suppose they cancelled each other and produced something intermediate.

[Voskos]

So he was dark skinned and blonde at the same time if i understood right? Strange isn't it?

[Peterski]

So he was dark skinned and blonde at the same time if i understood right? Strange isn't it?

He had genes which increase likelihood of blond hair but he also had genes which increase likelihood of black hair.

So I don't think that he was blond as darker genes probably were stronger and suppressed those lighter genes.

But he probably really had blue eyes.

[Voskos]

Which population brought light skin to britain then i wonder?

[Leto]

It wasn't artistic license. It was just a premature guess not based on conclusive evidence.

It was being promoted on purpose. The media said 'the first Briton was black'. Normally 'black' means Sub-Saharan African and most people know nothing about things like WHG, Neolithic farmers, Yamnaya, etc. So he would supposedly have been black as modern Africans. See the new documentary on Swedish TV, 'Meet the first Swedes' featuring a black man with blue eyes in a fur coat - they're doing the same thing again.

[Token]

Which population brought light skin to britain then i wonder?
Firstly the Neolithic farmers, but they weren't any lighter than modern day Sardinians. Really pale skin as Northern Europeans have today is probably of steppe derivation + positive selection over time.

[Peterski]

Here is a good article: https://www.gnxp.com/WordPress/2018/02/06/the-genome-of-cheddar-man-is-about-to-be-published/


The media said 'the first Briton was black'. Normally 'black' means Sub-Saharan African and most people know nothing about things like WHG, Neolithic farmers, Yamnaya, etc. So he was supposed to have been black as modern Africans. See the new documentary on Swedish TV, 'Meet the first Swedes' featuring a black man with blue eyes in a fur coat - they're doing the same thing again.

"The first Briton was dark and scored 37% Fennoscandian in K36" haha: :D


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v65-ErfUyVM


See the new documentary on Swedish TV, 'Meet the first Swedes' featuring a black man with blue eyes in a fur coat - they're doing the same thing again.

Rather something like this, to be honest (by the way, I will also check his pigmentation SNPs):

https://www.theapricity.com/forum/showthread.php?277794-North-Norwegian-Hunter-Gatherer-on-GEDmatch

[Bellbeaking]

https://www.norwegianamerican.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/HaakEtAlpage23Crop.jpg

haak et al gave significantly more WHG to scotland than england (like 60% more), how can the distance be the same to england and scotland?

[Peterski]

I uploaded him to DNA Land, let's see what they report, how much coffee did he drink, etc. :D

^^^
DNA Land Ancestry Report for Cheddar Man is ready:

https://www.theapricity.com/forum/showthread.php?279572-DNA-Land-Ancestry-Report-for-Cheddar-Man

https://i.imgur.com/dqG1qND.png

[J. Ketch]

I have uploaded him to GEDmatch Genesis:

Cheddar Man England 7150 BC, GEDmatch Genesis kit number - NW6414429

Where did you get the raw file for this?

[Ford]

Segment threshold size will be adjusted dynamically between 200 and 400 SNPs
Minimum segment cM to be included in total = 1.0 cM
Mismatch-bunching Limit will be adjusted dynamically to 60 percent of the segment threshold size for any given segment.

Largest segment = 1.8 cM

Total Half-Match segments (HIR) = 6.1 cM (0.169 Pct)

4 shared segments found for this comparison.

488390 SNPs used for this comparison.

55.063 Pct SNPs are full identical

[LetsMakeaTulpa]

Great work!

Let me preface by saying, I'm new to this...

That being said, I really like your explanation of the SNPs and agree that his skin was likely intermediate.
We still dont know exactly what produces the level of pigmentation in every population.
I think it makes a lot of sense that Cheddar Man didnt have all of the components/genes that make up modern day European skin genetics.
This man had been out of Africa for 10,000 years less than us, and did not have the shared ancestry with modern Europeans (farmers and Yamnaya).

His relation to other hunter gatherer populations (Estonians) surely means that he may have looked similar to them in several ways, but had the darker skin of a population that was less mixed with other Eurasian gene pools. (Many of which probably selected for lighter skin simultaneously).

Doesnt lifestyle turn on or off genes which influence skin color?

[Ayetooey]

True European native.

[Dick]

True European native.

brotha from anotha motha

[PaleoEuropean]

So where did the brown skin come from? Artistic licence?

He matches most with Saami people according to the heat map so he was probably one of the first instances of mixing with Siberians

[Bellbeaking]

rs1426654(G;G) ---> G is darker skin, modern Northern Europeans have A;A here
rs16891982(C;C) ---> C allele is darker skin, also 7x more likely to have black hair

Japs and Chinese have this genotype on both SNP's but are pale skinned. But then again our boy didn't have the Genes for light skin asians do have.

They almost certainly where not Blonde though, I am C;G (inherited from my Norman, North West Euro Side - only 3% of NW Euros are this) and my hair is black despite all the other genes for Blonde hair, (greek/welsh mother is light blonde haired). My siblings all have Blonde hair probably due to not having this allele. I think this is a powerful SNP. His hair was black like mine I think.

[mattp]

rs1408799(C;C) ---> C is lighter pigmentation & higher skin cancer risk in Europeans (per SNPedia)
rs1834640(A;A) --> associated with skin pigmentation (modern Europeans have A;A too)
rs12203592(T;T) ---> T associated with less tanning ability, common in Irish people
rs1015362(G;G) ---> G associated with less tanning ability, Sub-Saharans have A;A

Are you able to confirm that these are on Cheddar Man's DNA raw data? Interestingly the natural history museum has a download listing his pigmentation data but seems to have omitted what I have quoted.

[Imperator Biff]

Are you able to confirm that these are on Cheddar Man's DNA raw data? Interestingly the natural history museum has a download listing his pigmentation data but seems to have omitted what I have quoted.

The BAM file should be available here.
https://www.ebi.ac.uk/ena/data/search?query=PRJEB31249

[loschbour_man]

The BAM file should be available here.
https://www.ebi.ac.uk/ena/data/search?query=PRJEB31249

which one of these to download?

[mattp]

The BAM file should be available here.
https://www.ebi.ac.uk/ena/data/search?query=PRJEB31249

Thank you, will have a look

[mattp]

I would suggest that surely the reconstruction given (just like the recent Swedish HG) is an absurd exaggeration, even their own prediction model (hirisplex) seems to suggest a different possibility looking at Cheddar man's score. Perhaps no.11 on the studies comparison chart would be more likely surely?94552 94553

[ninjaboy]

It was being promoted on purpose. The media said 'the first Briton was black'. Normally 'black' means Sub-Saharan African and most people know nothing about things like WHG, Neolithic farmers, Yamnaya, etc. So he would supposedly have been black as modern Africans. See the new documentary on Swedish TV, 'Meet the first Swedes' featuring a black man with blue eyes in a fur coat - they're doing the same thing again.

Dude Swedish people are messed up, brainwashed, self-loathing, liberal fools beyond repair. Liberal madness is spreading like an epidemic disease all over the Western world, though.
However, black African refugees took this fake PC documentary as ammunition for claiming that they are the original Scandinavianians. Hence entitled to live in Sweden, their motherland.
Fact is that the Cheddar man looked Caucasiod and is genetically as far removed from SSA people as it can get. Casting a black African with blue contact lenses to play a WHG
illustrates that even documentaries are used for brainwashing the Western public with PC and diversity propaganda instead of informing them. At least they could
cast a Pakistani or a Northern Indian with blue eyes for portraying a WHG. These folks would resemble much more the Cheddar man than a black African. It would be even more accurate to let a European with a heavy tan play a WHG. The fetishization and worship of black people in Western countries, the media, academia, pop-culture, and advertisement are getting really ridiculous now. It's intellectually dishonest when people pretend that skin color is the only difference between the races despite the distinct racial traits, physiognomy, bone structure, body shape, etc. Besides the very dark to the black skin of Africans or Australo-Melanesians is not solely caused by the lack of depigmentation genes since they have a MC1Rf gene that is associated with very dark till black skin.

[Adamg]

Dude Swedish people are messed up, brainwashed, self-loathing, liberal fools beyond repair. Liberal madness is spreading like an epidemic disease all over the Western world, though.
However, black African refugees took this fake PC documentary as ammunition for claiming that they are the original Scandinavianians. Hence entitled to live in Sweden, their motherland.
Fact is that the Cheddar man looked Caucasiod and is genetically as far removed from SSA people as it can get. Casting a black African with blue contact lenses to play a WHG
illustrates that even documentaries are used for brainwashing the Western public with PC and diversity propaganda instead of informing them. At least they could
cast a Pakistani or a Northern Indian with blue eyes for portraying a WHG. These folks would resemble much more the Cheddar man than a black African. It would be even more accurate to let a European with a heavy tan play a WHG. The fetishization and worship of black people in Western countries, the media, academia, pop-culture, and advertisement are getting really ridiculous now. It's intellectually dishonest when people pretend that skin color is the only difference between the races despite the distinct racial traits, physiognomy, bone structure, body shape, etc. Besides the very dark to the black skin of Africans or Australo-Melanesians is not solely caused by the lack of depigmentation genes since they have a MC1Rf gene that is associated with very dark till black skin.

Blacks were original WHG.

[Cumansky]

So he was dark skinned and blonde at the same time if i understood right? Strange isn't it?

No

[mattp]

I know this is old now but anyway...

Cheddar man along with La Brana were predicted 'Dark to Black', but is this just down to a glitch with hirisplex?

CM had derived alleles on the HERC2 snps (No 31 & 32 on hirisplex), as highlighted on this screenshot:

<img src="https://i.ibb.co/7y18SBC/chedancestralhirisplex.png" alt="chedancestralhirisplex" border="0">

But when you give him ANCESTRAL alleles on these two snps (fixed in Africans almost), he is is somehow predicted more in the INTERMEDIATE category:

<img src="https://i.ibb.co/zZWWvPX/ched-HERC2.png" alt="ched-HERC2" border="0">

Loschbour had the same derived variants as CM and La Brana but the calculator seems to be working in his prediction and he was predicted as 'intermediate'. I'd be willing to bet that without this apparent glitch on hirisplex that this is what CM and La Brana should be estimated to be also.

[Lucas]

I know this is old now but anyway...

Cheddar man along with La Brana were predicted 'Dark to Black', but is this just down to a glitch with hirisplex?

CM had derived alleles on the HERC2 snps (No 31 & 32 on hirisplex), as highlighted on this screenshot:

<img src="https://i.ibb.co/7y18SBC/chedancestralhirisplex.png" alt="chedancestralhirisplex" border="0">

But when you give him ANCESTRAL alleles on these two snps (fixed in Africans almost), he is is somehow predicted more in the INTERMEDIATE category:

<img src="https://i.ibb.co/zZWWvPX/ched-HERC2.png" alt="ched-HERC2" border="0">

Loschbour had the same derived variants as CM and La Brana but the calculator seems to be working in his prediction and he was predicted as 'intermediate'. I'd be willing to bet that without this apparent glitch on hirisplex that this is what CM and La Brana should be estimated to be also.

I remember it was pointed out on another forum too.
But academics are affraid to correct it because of PC.

[J. Ketch]

I remember it was pointed out on another forum too.
But academics are affraid to correct it because of PC.
Now they'll pretend like it doesn't matter. They got the publicity they wanted with the black reconstruction and that's all that matters.

[Leto]

Now they'll pretend like it doesn't matter. They got the publicity they wanted with the black reconstruction and that's all that matters.
And countless retards all over the world will keep parroting those lies/half-truths ad nauseam because BBC or Daily Mail articles are the only things they read.

[mattp]

deleted

[Lucas]

Now they'll pretend like it doesn't matter. They got the publicity they wanted with the black reconstruction and that's all that matters.

Yes. Probably it will be officially corrected quietly in some future works but without any massmedia effect.

Interesting that on every photo he is kinda lighter or darker. Maybe later they will say he was intermediate colored since the begining (4th image). Only some newspapers took photos under bad lightning condition:) It wasn't our fault lol.

https://i.imgur.com/xXToEKA.png

[mattp]

I remember it was pointed out on another forum too.
But academics are affraid to correct it because of PC.

Oh okay thanks. I thought this was extremely strange that such a massive difference could exist between these very similar WHGs. Maybe I will post this to Tom Booth.

[Tauromachos]

Which population brought light skin to britain then i wonder?

Serbs and Albos

[mattp]

..

[mattp]

Del

[mattp]

,..

[mattp]

Worth mentioning also that all WHG on the different snipper prediction model score intermediate skin tone, with usually low odds over white;



Loschbour/ Villabruna/ La Brana;


<img src="https://i.ibb.co/YPkTpsF/Loschbour-snipper-skin-3-D.png" alt="Loschbour-snipper-skin-3-D" border="0">

Cheddar man/ Sramore62 (Irish WHG);


<img src="https://i.ibb.co/DMKRNBy/Cheddar-Man-Snipper-skin-3-D.png" alt="Cheddar-Man-Snipper-skin-3-D" border="0">

Bichon;


<img src="https://i.ibb.co/8dc44Zp/Bichon-snipper-skin-3-D.png" alt="Bichon-snipper-skin-3-D" border="0">

[Rafael Passoni]

His reconstruction doesn't seens accurate taking into account where he plots. Did they delete his dna kit?