Who Were the First Humans on British Shores? | The Story of 'Cheddar Man'

Maybe the hole in his head signifies that he is actually Swiss, not Cheddar?! 🤔 Either way, this story sounds a bit cheesy to me! 🤷‍♀️

Oxford University scientists announced Friday 9 Mar 1997 that Adrian Targett, 42, a history teacher in the large Village (pop of 5500) of Cheddar in southwest England, shares a common ancestor with Cheddar Man.

It is the longest human lineage ever traced, the team of scientists from the university's Institute of Molecular Medicine said.

"First humans on British shores" implies an island. Britain was still joined to mainland Europe when humans first came.

I once read they did a DNA comparison on Cheddar Man with local people, and they found one gentleman who was a descendant of Cheddar Man. His wife remarked her husband was rather fond of rare meat.

Poor explanation of whether he’s a direct ancestor. Yes, he is, if he left descendants, because he lived before the Identical Ancestors Point. He is a member of the WHG population, Western Hunter Gatherers. From Wikipedia “This population forms about 10%, on average , of the ancestry of Britons without a recent family history of immigration.” So yes, he (or his contemporaries who left descendants) make up 10% of the typical British ancestry, and a smaller proportion of the ancestry of everybody else.

They found his distance relative through a DNA through his mother side he was shocked and he said that it's a interesting thing to be apart of a family older than the current monarch. He had black hair and blue eyes.

Didn't Adrian Targett from Cheddar link his mitochondrial DNA back to Cheddar Man? I believe it happened back twenty-five years ago or so..

The thing is homosapien is a wanderer. Always moving, some of us have made incredible efforts to travel others "settle down". Our monogamy makes moving a lot easier than for a polygamous communities who would have to have a planning committee meeting b4 they could do anything

Britain has always been a land where people come and go, except, Cheddar man's people, the Western-Hunter-Gatherers, went nowhere. Rather they were replaced by the farming population. This doesn't mean they all decided to just leave the land to the farmers, this meant they were taken over by the farmers. Interestingly, we see in Britain and Ireland that phenotypes associated with these Western hunter-gatherers remained amongst the ruling elite of the later farming societies. This is in contrast to the typical continental setting where we see the farmers actively waging war against the Western hunter-gatherer populations during the neolithic.

Yet then again, the farmers that replaced Cheddar man's people, were then replaced, by force, by the Bell Beaker people as this video mentions, but the farmers did not leave peacefully. We see instead up to 90% of the farming society's people disappear, with an almost complete and significant population replacement, by a society that was notorious for it's warrior-graves.

However, British people are essentially still Bell Beakers. In Ireland and Wales, most of their ancestors and paternal lineages are of indigenous beaker origin. In Scotland, most of their ancestry and paternal lineages are also of Beaker origin. In England, they have less native Beaker ancestry, but the ancestors of the English from the continent, e.g. the various Germanic tribes, were ultimately also of Beaker origin, however they were continental beaker people.

4,500 years of a relatively stable population of Beaker-descendent people. Beaker people themselves being descendants of both Western-Hunter-Gatherers and the farmers. It's not really comparable to modern migration.

Well done! But I do have a bone to pick: early remains are labeled "cannibals" when there is actually only evidence of de-fleshing of bones, not what was done with that flesh. Many people groups de-flesh bones in order to release the spirit.

I was totally captivated by this show, I live very close to Cheddar gorges, and when it all closes at about 5.30pm, I have been in the Gorges for a late picnic with family and friends, and the mountain Goats that still climb wildly upwards on what look like a giant stairway, you cant help but feel you are trapped in time. In an age that could of been 10,000 years ago or 100,000 years ago, until a car or motorbike brings you back to today.

Strange calling the The Oldest Englishman. English or England did not exit ten thousand years ago. The oldest Britain would be a more accurate title for this.

My irish father has quite a bit of DNA from Cheddar nan. I have confirmed it through about 6 other DNA sites and they all come back to him. He also has DNA from that part of England and lots of DNA matches from the South West..

My grandmother told me it doesn't matter what they tell you at school Chedder man was not made of cheese

Why mention Ms Seacoal?
She was a trader !

People have only left the islands of Great Britain and Ireland due to the advance of ice sheets - driven out by nature, not choice.

Interesting video i thought they did find a relative of Cheddar Man. Living in a Village not far from where Cheddar Man's remains were found? I am sure I recall seeing that on the news? I did enjoy this video as I was born in Cheltenham , England. Now I reside in Ontario , Canada. 💪🏻🙏🏻✨

A very enjoyable watch, ably presented. A subject I'm always interested in. I feel I've learnt something.

When you think of it, it makes total sense. I read ages ago that scientists found that the very first humans were black skinned and came from Africa ,around Botswana area so obviously they spread out and travelled around the world , . Wasn't the world all joined up anyway at first then parts of the lands moves away to form the world we know today? Fascinating stuff. Huge thanks for sharing . 👍❤️

The people who reconstructed Cheddar Man said they had darkend his skin as an experiment. Its taken on a political thing. Cheddar Man probably looked like Tom Jones, Catherine Zeta Jones or Luke Evans. Within the zone of Britishness.