Turi King on whether Cheddar Man was related to Rich's history teacher - from RHLSTP Book Club 188

[00:00:00]I will talk to you about Cheddar Man, I'm very angry with you because my history [laughter] my history teacher Adrian Target in the 1990s was revealed to be a direct relative of the skeleton in Cheddar Caves and you [laughter] and you are saying although he is related in some way that that is is not true. Can you explain?

[00:00:19]>> Well, it's so what it was Blascuz I remember this was wasn't he in the newspapers about he is a direct descendant of Cheddar Man and I said [laughter] hang on a second. Okay, a few things here. So, mitochondrial DNA goes down through the female line. So, Cheddar Man being a guy can't pass it down. Um, we don't know if he would have been descended from say Cheddar Man's I don't know, sister. We don't even know if Cheddar Man had kids for a start. We don't know if he would have been descended from one of Cheddar Man's close female line relatives. Somewhere in time, just like everybody, we will have a common ancestor and that's also just through the female line. He may well be more closely related through another route. It's just that he was looking at mitochondrial DNA. And this was Brian who kind of in the really early days kind of really pioneered this field of genetic genealogy but would sometimes go off into areas that you can as geneticists we're going what?

[00:01:13]>> [laughter] >> Seven Daughters of Eve for example went down a storm with the public but as a geneticist you're going why is he put the [laughter] line there? Seven's a good number. That's what he's chosen. He gave them all backstories, didn't he? He had these seven daughters, Xenia and things like this and he was like he would give them all backstories as to, you know, what they were wearing and where they were striding and this kind of thing. So, >> Yeah, well they they went down a storm with the public. In Cheddar where I'm I'm from obviously and where I used to work in Cheddar Caves, they make a big deal of it. They've made a model of what they think Cheddar Man would look like.

[00:01:41]They look exactly like Adrian Target except he's dark skin dark skin. I mean that's interesting that the DNA the DNA that they've they've they think he's probably a blue-eyed uh black brown skinned man Cheddar Man which which you know is a very interesting thing.

[00:01:54]>> Yeah, yeah and it's and we have again we have to be you know, you have to be careful with it cuz it you're making predictions about uh you know, skin color and eye color.

[00:02:03]But I suppose it kind of challenges these views of what people think the British the people of the British Isles might have been at that time.

[00:02:10]>> Yeah. And I think again, the point you make and this is a nice point in the book uh you know, or a point that we should realize is that we're all very interrelated. So, the idea of saying you're related to someone from 10,000 years ago, you can pretty much guarantee I mean, you can guarantee it, can't you?

[00:02:26]Everyone's related to everyone.

[00:02:27]>> be. So, it's really sweet cuz there's a one of the genetic testing companies does mitochondrial DNA and they go, "Ooh, you are the I get people emailing say, 'Well, I have been told that I am descended from Richard III.' And I'll go, 'Hang on a second, Richard III didn't have any kids. He was a bloke.'

[00:02:43]Um but also it's like so but when you look at when the sort of coalescence time of when they would have shared a common ancestor, it was before the Ice Age.

[00:02:52]So, it's like it's like we're all we're all related to each other.

[00:02:56]>> and well, and everything on the planet basically is or every living thing is related to every other living thing, which >> exactly. Which I find really like a lovely thought and which is why I kind of go, "So, where does family end?"

[00:03:09]Because, you know, you can kind of go, "Well, what what does family mean actually if we're all cousins at some level? What does family mean?" Yeah.