His genome carried the variants associated with darker pigmentation at the major skin color loci, and the variant associated with reduced eye melanin at the HERC2/OCA2 locus.

The specific combination — darker skin from the skin pigmentation variants, blue eyes from the eye pigmentation variant — is consistent with the independent evolution of these traits: the blue eye variant spread earlier or through different selection pressures than the light skin variants, producing the apparent paradox of blue eyes with dark skin.

The Meaning For Human Evolution Science

Beyond the specific findings about Cheddar Man, the ancient DNA revolution that his analysis represents has had profound implications for how evolutionary biologists and anthropologists think about human evolution and adaptation.

The Cheddar Man findings exemplify several key insights that have emerged from ancient DNA research: