One of the more fascinating aspects of the Cheddar Man research was the investigation of whether any living people in Britain today carry DNA that can be traced to the Western Hunter-Gatherer population to which he belonged.

This had been investigated earlier, in a 1997 study by Bryan Sykes and his Oxford colleagues, before whole-genome sequencing was available.

That study had compared mitochondrial DNA — the small circular genome found in the mitochondria rather than the nucleus, which is inherited exclusively through the maternal line — from Cheddar Man with mitochondrial DNA from living residents of the Cheddar area.

The study found a schoolteacher named Adrian Targett who shared the same rare mitochondrial haplogroup as Cheddar Man, suggesting a possible maternal-line connection across ten millennia.