The story of European ancestry is not a story of populations that developed in place over long periods; it is a story of populations in constant motion, constantly meeting and mixing, constantly being replaced and replacing.

Cheddar Man stands at one specific moment in this long story — one snapshot in a process of continuous change.

His snapshot is particularly vivid because his preservation was so excellent and because the contrast between his appearance and modern European appearance is so striking.

But he is representative of a moment, not a beginning, in a story that had been going on for a very long time before him and that continued for a very long time after.

The Population That Was Lost