Cheddar Man

Exhibition of 'Cheddar Man'.

A new history of Britain and Ireland by Norman Davies, "The Isles," (Oxford University Press) begins with an account of Cheddar man, an 8,980-year-old skeleton from which mitochondrial DNA was recently extracted.

In Cheddar Gorge, near Bristol, the remains of animal species native to mainland Europe such as antelopes, brown bears, and wild horses have been found alongside a human skeleton, 'Cheddar Man', dated to about 7150 BC.

But after a seemingly quixotic experiment in which scientists compared Cheddar Man's DNA to that of 20 local residents, Mr. Targett recently received a wholly unexpected piece of news: He is, it seems, related to Cheddar Man on his mother's side.