The petrous bone in such an environment is about as favorable a combination for ancient DNA preservation as exists in the archaeological record.

The Wader’s World: Britain At The End Of The Ice Age

Britain at the end of the last Ice Age — approximately 12,000 to 10,000 years ago — was a profoundly different landscape from the one that exists today, and understanding it helps situate Cheddar Man in his actual world.

The ice had already begun retreating from much of Britain by this point, but the landscape that remained was shaped by its glacial past: U-shaped valleys cut by glaciers, moraines of deposited glacial debris, outwash plains of sand and gravel, and a geology radically reshaped by the weight of ice.

The soils were young and often thin — the long-established forest soils of the previous interglacial had been stripped away by the ice.