He had what some researchers described as a unique facial structure — somewhat different from both the earlier Paleolithic populations and the later Neolithic populations that would replace the Mesolithic hunter-gatherers across Europe.

There was also evidence of something more ambiguous: damage to his skull.

Specifically, there were holes in the skull that could be interpreted as evidence of violence — a blow to the head, perhaps, or some other form of physical trauma.

Or they could have been caused by the natural processes of decomposition and burial, or by the damage inflicted by excavation in 1903.

The question of how Cheddar Man died has never been definitively answered.