Cheddar Man: a black man in a cold climate

 Cheddar Man: a black man in a cold climate

Cheddar man was a genetically and phenotypically typical western europe hunter-gatherer who lived in Britain in the mesolithic period about 10,000 years ago.

The reconstructed face shown above from the British Museum was created from DNA sequencing and the bone structure of a skeleton found in Cheddar GB. With very dark brown skin, black hair and blue/blue-green eyes it was in many ways shocking to the now mostly white population. Cheddar man disappeared and was replaced by lighter skinned farmers originating from Turkey and they in turn were replaced by even paler and taller people originating from the Eastern steppes. This post is not about human evolution but about Vitamin D.

Quite simply, farming brought about a diet containing domesticated cereals, legumes and pulses and a more indoor lifetsye. Vitamin D is low in diets that have these foods at  their core. Fortunately we can make Vitamin D from cholesterol in the blood through the action of sunlight. It is a well regulated system whereby the skin darkens due to the sun-blocking pigment melanin which is produced through the stimulation of sunlight ( sun-tan). The brighter the sun the darker the skin and vice-versa.

The near translucent pale skins of say the Northern Irish where light levels are low compared to the near black skins of bush Australian aborigines who are exposed to the most intense light on the planet illustrates the point clearly. Different light intensity, siiar Vit D production.

Both populations are by the way geneticay classified as Caucasian!

Cheddar Man is therefore an anomaly, especially as he had good, solid bones. His dark sunlight-blocking skin  has a range of explanations: the sun was brighter in the UK 10,000 years ago; unlike later farmers he spent a lot more time outside; he and his population were recent immigrants from southern climes or he had  high levels of dietary Vitamin D ( which promotes melanisation).

The sun wasn’t brighter, he wasn’t a southern immigrant but he would have spent a lot of time outside. Recent immigrants to the UK from the Asian subcontinents with darkskins, eating traditional diets, and avoiding sun-bathing are very vulnerable to Vitamin D deficiency. They may even develop a Vitamin D-deficiency bone-disease rickets. Not so Cheddar Man

Cheddar Man most likely then ate a diet high in Vitamin D and/or rich in pro-vitamin D substrates.

The latter are cholesterol, ergocholesteol and squalene.

To, so to speak, ‘max-out’ on the above he would need to eat the following

Seafood ( mussels, urchins, clams, oysters, crayfish, crabs)

Oily fish ( sprats, sardines, rays, salmon, trout)

Eggs ( bird’s eggs, especially from large colonies say of fulmar, puffin)

Fungi (field mushrooms)

Offal (liver, brain, kidney)

In all likelihood these are exactly the foods he would have easiest access to: shores, rivers, cliffs and woods. No dangerous technical hunting needed, trapping and netting would suffice and nor would cooking  be really necessary. 

So, in short, Cheddar Man’s high cholesterol diet and outdoor ife style allowed him to stay safely black.