Fragmentary skeletal remains from Cheddar Cave have yielded DNA that suggests this man, who lived about 10,000 years ago, had dark skin and blue eyes .......more on Cheddar Man
It is intriguing to think that the first inhabitants of Europe may have been dark skinned. It used to be thought that pale skin must have evolved as humans moved into cooler parts of the globe, but the latest DNA analyses suggest a far more complex picture. This complexity has evaded field archaeology: the people shared similar tools and lifestyles, but a difference in who the people were may have been detected. Read on!
Recent work led by Iosif Lazaridis at Harvard studied 55 skeletons dating from 30,000 to 5000 BCE. At present the conclusions of this work suggest:
- small populations of pre-Ice Age people survived in sheltered mountain valleys in the Pyrenees, Dordogne, Balkans and Apennines. Their mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA - the mother-line DNA) had the haplogroup M, which is in the present day also shared by many in Asia and the Americas
- around 12500 BCE a different hunter-gatherer population from further south and east in tundra-covered Europe completely replaced the older population. This group carried in its mtDNA the N haplogroup, not the M haplogroup. In fact the N haplogroup is still unique to Europeans.
- This study is a work in progress and you can read more about it here: www.newscientist.com/article/2076477-mystery-invaders-conquered-europe-at-the-end-of-last-ice-age/
One of the earliest pseudo-scientific methods used to try and explain why humans are different was the study of head shapes.
Phrenology claimed to predict personality, and criminality, from the surface features of the skull.
By the mid-19th century, a veritable craze had started for measuring the cephalic or cranial indices of skulls, in the belief that this demonstrated racial types and a hierarchy of 'best traits'. It was well loved by extreme politics of the 20th century.
Phrenology claimed to predict personality, and criminality, from the surface features of the skull.
By the mid-19th century, a veritable craze had started for measuring the cephalic or cranial indices of skulls, in the belief that this demonstrated racial types and a hierarchy of 'best traits'. It was well loved by extreme politics of the 20th century.
Textbooks on British archaeology written in the 1950s still used terms like brachiocephalic (short-skulled) or dolichocephalic (long-skulled) to distinguish Stone Age and Bronze Age populations.
Stop Press! Ever vigilant Jean in our class spotted an article on Radio 4's Today Programme that covers research by Gloria Gonzales Fortes, who is a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Ferrara in northern Italy.
This research suggests palaeogenetic evidence for a relatively recent migration route from Africa to southern Iberia, dating to as recent as 2000 BCE.
This is another example of genetic studies throwing up a movement of people that archaeology has completely missed.
Coincidentally, we discussed the idea of a route across northern Africa in our session the day before this broadcast.
Go to 2:49:56 on the clip below to hear her brief interview....or just listen to all 3 hours of the Today programme....
Today Programme 23/01/2019
This research suggests palaeogenetic evidence for a relatively recent migration route from Africa to southern Iberia, dating to as recent as 2000 BCE.
This is another example of genetic studies throwing up a movement of people that archaeology has completely missed.
Coincidentally, we discussed the idea of a route across northern Africa in our session the day before this broadcast.
Go to 2:49:56 on the clip below to hear her brief interview....or just listen to all 3 hours of the Today programme....
Today Programme 23/01/2019
Even better - Jean has located the New Scientist article that tells more about Gloria Gonzales Fortes - read about the Straits of Gibraltar migration in recent human history from this link