This is a real question, I’m not trying to be racist, but why do they think Cheddar man’s skin tone would be that dark vs the lighter skin of modern Adrian Targett?
Was this something that came over after some migration? Or a more recent adaptation?
Also how cool is it that this man’s maternal line has lived in the same small area for 11,000 years!
Modern native European genetics can be roughly said to derive from 3 main sources. One is western Hunter gatherer (WHG). These were not the first people in Europe but were the first to populate Europe after the latest ice age ended. By analysing their genome we think they were dark skinned, black haired and had blue eyes. The light skin adaptation didn’t actually develop in Europe but in the middle east. Here is where the second group comes from.
Early European Farmer (EEF) originally came from Anatolia and were the ones spreading farming around Europe. Interestingly the spread of farming was not spread by knowledge transfer but by the migration and expansion of EEFs. The EEFs and the WHGs would coexist for hundreds of years with little admixture, living completely different lifestyles. The early European farmers, whose genetics derive from Neolithic Anatolia, were light skinned, brown eyed and relatively short. Modern groups with the most genetic similarity to EEFs are modern day Sicilians so you can imagine that. Overtime the EEFs and the WHGs would eventually mix however.
The third group are the yamnaya, also called steppe Ancestry. The yamnaya were a people group in modern day Romania and Ukraine who just so happened to invent the concept of riding a horse and after they did so they steamrolled about all of Europe in aggressive conquest. The Indo European languages derived from them and their expansion vastly changed the genetics of the continent. And all Europeans derive at least part of their genetics from them, of course in different amounts depending on the region. They were believed to be quite tall and have blond hair and are the “Aryans” that the Nazis talked about.
All modern Europeans are a mixture of these 3 groups, in different proportions. So returning to the pictures in the OP it makes sense for the cheddar man would be dark skinned as he would be 100% WHG as he lives way before any of these groups moved in. This does not mean however that the guy on the right is not a direct ancestor, he very well may be. But since he is also a result of the later migrants, the EEFs and the Indo European expansion, he will of course look vastly different.
There was a time where both modern humans and Neanderthals lived together in Europe and it’s likely they mixed. But this was before the last ice age. After the ice age the Neanderthals were already extinct globally and the first people to repopulate Europe were these WHGs who genetically had little to do with the pre ice age population. Therefore I would assume strictly European Neanderthals have little to no modern genetic impact in Europeans. The Neanderthals genes Europeans carry today would instead derive from middle eastern Neanderthals.
Nah I’m just very interested in agricultural history (I work in agriculture ) and I learned this stuff as a byproduct of learning about the origins and spread of farming into Europe. If you are interested there are lots of good long-form history videos about the neolithic on YouTube, just search Neolithic. So far Neolithic youtube has not suffered the same AI slop-ageddon as medieval YouTube has.
This is so cool, thanks for sharing. I am reading Earth’s Children book 4 right now and I know the author was well documented, but she wrote those books 30 years ago, so I assume modern findings would clash with some of her fiction. Anyway, thanks again
Shoutout to Miniminuteman/Milo Rossi, he’s an archaeologist and does a lot of debunking of ancient aliens-esque conspiracy theories, collaborative videos with other archaeologists about their work, and cool educational videos about things I’d never heard of before, like The Great Raft: a unique ecosystem made up of a log-jammed river that existed for ~600 years and supported multiple indigenous societies.
This is a real question, I’m not trying to be racist, but why do they think Cheddar man’s skin tone would be that dark vs the lighter skin of modern Adrian Targett?
Was this something that came over after some migration? Or a more recent adaptation?
Also how cool is it that this man’s maternal line has lived in the same small area for 11,000 years!
Modern native European genetics can be roughly said to derive from 3 main sources. One is western Hunter gatherer (WHG). These were not the first people in Europe but were the first to populate Europe after the latest ice age ended. By analysing their genome we think they were dark skinned, black haired and had blue eyes. The light skin adaptation didn’t actually develop in Europe but in the middle east. Here is where the second group comes from.
Early European Farmer (EEF) originally came from Anatolia and were the ones spreading farming around Europe. Interestingly the spread of farming was not spread by knowledge transfer but by the migration and expansion of EEFs. The EEFs and the WHGs would coexist for hundreds of years with little admixture, living completely different lifestyles. The early European farmers, whose genetics derive from Neolithic Anatolia, were light skinned, brown eyed and relatively short. Modern groups with the most genetic similarity to EEFs are modern day Sicilians so you can imagine that. Overtime the EEFs and the WHGs would eventually mix however.
The third group are the yamnaya, also called steppe Ancestry. The yamnaya were a people group in modern day Romania and Ukraine who just so happened to invent the concept of riding a horse and after they did so they steamrolled about all of Europe in aggressive conquest. The Indo European languages derived from them and their expansion vastly changed the genetics of the continent. And all Europeans derive at least part of their genetics from them, of course in different amounts depending on the region. They were believed to be quite tall and have blond hair and are the “Aryans” that the Nazis talked about.
All modern Europeans are a mixture of these 3 groups, in different proportions. So returning to the pictures in the OP it makes sense for the cheddar man would be dark skinned as he would be 100% WHG as he lives way before any of these groups moved in. This does not mean however that the guy on the right is not a direct ancestor, he very well may be. But since he is also a result of the later migrants, the EEFs and the Indo European expansion, he will of course look vastly different.
Where do European Neanderthals fit into this story?
There was a time where both modern humans and Neanderthals lived together in Europe and it’s likely they mixed. But this was before the last ice age. After the ice age the Neanderthals were already extinct globally and the first people to repopulate Europe were these WHGs who genetically had little to do with the pre ice age population. Therefore I would assume strictly European Neanderthals have little to no modern genetic impact in Europeans. The Neanderthals genes Europeans carry today would instead derive from middle eastern Neanderthals.
Fun fact: we’re still in an kce age. What you’re thinking of is technically a glacial maximum
I want to thank you too, that was a very interesting read! Thanks for the knowledge! 💖
Oh I see, thats very interesting thank you! Are you an archaeologist, or just someone very interested in stone-age history?
Nah I’m just very interested in agricultural history (I work in agriculture ) and I learned this stuff as a byproduct of learning about the origins and spread of farming into Europe. If you are interested there are lots of good long-form history videos about the neolithic on YouTube, just search Neolithic. So far Neolithic youtube has not suffered the same AI slop-ageddon as medieval YouTube has.
This is so cool, thanks for sharing. I am reading Earth’s Children book 4 right now and I know the author was well documented, but she wrote those books 30 years ago, so I assume modern findings would clash with some of her fiction. Anyway, thanks again
Shoutout to Miniminuteman/Milo Rossi, he’s an archaeologist and does a lot of debunking of ancient aliens-esque conspiracy theories, collaborative videos with other archaeologists about their work, and cool educational videos about things I’d never heard of before, like The Great Raft: a unique ecosystem made up of a log-jammed river that existed for ~600 years and supported multiple indigenous societies.
According to the wiki article, it’s determined from DNA samples.
The population was still relatively (in evolution sense) new to the area, so they still had the darker skin tone from their middle eastern ancestors
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/feb/07/first-modern-britons-dark-black-skin-cheddar-man-dna-analysis-reveals
This basically. Most of the European population descends from a more recent immigration wave from the middle east.
You do realize skin color just has to do with melanin to protect from the sun right? All of human history came from Africa.