The wonders of DNA testing

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Monganaut M
Monganaut Feb 7, 2018 16:34:04
Replying to Sanctuary

Fascinating discovery. If the majority of Western Euroupe are now white, just shows how quickly evolutionary adaptions can take effect when needed. 10 000 odd years is the blink of an eye. Are the samples from the same bones that the bloke living in Cheddar shared DNA with, if so, would be fun to have an interview with him again. May go som of the way to explaining why some Afghan hill tribes have striking blue eyes. Maybe it wasn't Alexander the Greats army after all, but a small evolutionary shift long before.

Mind you, I read a book which came to the conclusion that most of Western Europe were decended from I think it was 5 or 7 'original' females. As I recall, one was from the Russian Steppes region, one was from the Greecian region, a couple were from the Middle East / Turkey, and I forget where the other few originated.

N nigelswift
nigelswift Feb 7, 2018 16:45:11
Replying to Monganaut

I seem to remember "the bloke living in Cheddar shared DNA" was a big story years ago but was then denied on the grounds that all of us have the same DNA connection to him as the people of Cheddar.

Great that he was dark skinned though. One in the eye for the "indigenous English" lot.

T tjj
tjj Feb 7, 2018 18:00:23
Replying to Monganaut

You cannot help but be fascinated by this story as it all over the newspapers as well as internet (NewsThump having a field day). Found myself looking back to the Paviland 'Lady' whose red ochre covered bones predate Cheddar Man by some 20,000 plus years. Stephen Moss for the Guardian stayed in the cave a few years back and wrote a piece which is still an interesting read.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2011/apr/25/paviland-cave-red-lady

What jumped out at me while reading was this paragraph ...
The bones, stained red, are laid out in boxes, but you have no sense of the body, which is reckoned to have been 6ft tall, narrow-hipped and gracile – more African than European in body type and typical of a man who had to cover huge distances on foot.