Cheddar Man changes the way we think about our ancestors
In 1903 workmen digging a drainage trench in Gough's Cave in the Cheddar Gorge, in Somerset, uncovered the remains of a young man, sealed under a stalagmite. The figure, feet curled up underneath him, was small, at about 5ft 5in, and would have weighed around 10 stone when he died in his early 20s. The cause of death has still not been determined by palaeontologists.
The skeleton's antiquity was revealed when fossil experts dated his bones and realised that Cheddar Man, as he quickly became known, was almost 10,000 years old. This is still the oldest virtually complete skeleton that has been unearthed in the British Isles, although it is unclear whether the young man died in the cave or was brought there by fellow tribesmen and was then buried there.
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