British Archaeology in the 21st century: an introduction

Cummings, Vicki and Driscoll, Stephen 2025. British Archaeology in the 21st century: an introduction. Cummings, Vicky and Driscoll, Stephen, eds. The Archaeology of Britain, Routledge, pp. 1-11. (10.4324/9780429445521-1)

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Abstract

In 1903, while clearing the accumulated sediments out of Gough’s Cave in Somerset, a near-complete skeleton was encountered. It was not archaeologists doing the work, but since the cave had already produced many ancient finds they realised that these bones were very old. The remains were kept, and when studied revealed that they were the remains of a young adult male who had been carefully buried in the cave – the individual subsequently became known as ‘Cheddar Man’. Later in the twentieth century, the bones were subject to radiocarbon dating which indicated that they were approximately 9000 years old, dating to the Mesolithic (Middle Stone Age), making Cheddar Man one of the oldest near-complete skeletons from Britain. However, it was work in the twenty-first century which completely changed our view of this individual from merely old to unexpected. When his DNA was analysed it was revealed that it was very likely that he had blue/green eyes, dark hair and dark-to-black skin (Brace et al. 2019). This was an exciting new discovery, because archaeologists had assumed that people living in northern Europe after the last Ice Age would have adapted to the climate by having pale skin in order to absorb more UV light and thus produce more vitamin D. The new study had revealed we had to completely rethink our previously held assumptions about people (and race) in the distant past.

Item Type:	Book Section
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Schools > History, Archaeology and Religion
Publisher:	Routledge
ISBN:	9781138333833
Last Modified:	14 Jan 2026 13:02
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/176149

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