What The Ancestry Analysis Found

Beyond the physical characteristics, the genome analysis placed Cheddar Man firmly within the Western Hunter-Gatherer population and illuminated his specific position in the broader human genealogy.

The analysis showed that Cheddar Man’s ancestors had come into Europe at the end of the Last Glacial Maximum — roughly 14,000 to 11,000 years ago — as part of the recolonization of northern and western Europe after the ice retreated.

The specific genetic signature of his population is most closely related to the population that appears in southern Europe and the Balkans around the end of the last Ice Age, suggesting that the ancestors of Britain’s Mesolithic people came north through the European continent as the ice opened habitable territory.