The Official Story (As Presented)
Cheddar Man lived ~10,000 years ago in Mesolithic Britain.
DNA analysis suggests:
Dark to very dark skin
Blue eyes
Curly hair
He’s not directly related to modern Britons, but shares ancestry with Western Hunter-Gatherers, who migrated from mainland Europe after the Ice Age.
So the media takeaway became:
“The first Briton was black! Checkmate, racists.”
Which is a massive oversimplification if not outright bait.
What’s Actually Going On
1. Dark-Skinned ≠ Sub-Saharan African
Cheddar Man’s skin tone is estimated based on a small number of pigmentation genes—most notably SLC24A5, SLC45A2, and HERC2.
These indicate he likely had darker pigmentation, but this doesn’t mean he was “black” in the modern racial sense.
He was a European Mesolithic hunter-gatherer with blue eyes.
Not an African migrant. Not a Bantu. Not anything remotely close to modern black populations.
2. The "First Briton" Label Is Politically Loaded
Cheddar Man was not the first human in Britain.
Neanderthals lived in Britain 200,000 years ago. Homo sapiens arrived at least 40,000 years ago.
He’s just the oldest complete skeleton found in Britain, not the start of the population.
So saying he was “the first Briton” is like finding a 1950s Volvo in Sweden and saying it’s “the first car.”
3. Media Framing Was Clearly Narrative-Driven
The reconstruction was pushed alongside immigration debates.
The image was stylised and released to coincide with BBC and Channel 4 documentaries about race, identity, and Brexit.
The reaction was part of a manufactured culture war using ancient DNA as a proxy battleground.
They turned him into a symbol, not a scientific data point.