Cheddar Man is a human male fossil found in Gough's Cave in Cheddar Gorge, Somerset, England. The skeletal remains date to around the mid-to-late 9th millennium BC, corresponding to the Mesolithic period, and it appears that he died a violent death. A large crater-like lesion just above the skull's right orbit suggests that the man may have also been suffering from a bone infection. Excavated in 1903, Cheddar Man is Britain's oldest near-complete human skeleton. The remains are kept by London's Natural History Museum, in the Human Evolution gallery. Analysis of his nuclear DNA indicates that he was a typical member of the Western European hunter-gatherer population at the time, with a most likely inferred phenotype of blue-green eyes, dark brown or black hair, and dark or dark-to-black skin, with no genetic adaption for lactase persistence into adulthood. Archaeological context The near-complete skeleton, an adult male who probably died in his early twenties, was discovered in 1903 by labourers digging a drainage ditch. No grave goods have been reliably associated with the skeleton. It is likely that Cheddar Man was moved to the cave after death as part of what may have been a Mesolithic funerary practice, although it is also possible that he simply died in situ. Cheddar Man has been directly radiocarbon dated on two separate occasions, giving calibrated dates of 8540-7990 BC and 8470-8230 BC. Morphology Cheddar Man was relatively small compared to modern Europeans, with an estimated stature of around , and weighing around . Proportionally, he is in most respects similar to modern Europeans, and may be described as 'cold-adapted', but with a high crural index (thigh length to leg length ratio) which is much higher than the modern European average and higher even than the modern sub-Saharan African average, and a high tibia length-to-trunk height ratio similar to modern North Africans. Genetics Phenotype Nuclear DNA was extracted from the petrous part of the temporal bone by a team from the Natural History Museum in 2018. While the relevant genetic markers on the Cheddar Man genome have low sequencing coverage, limiting the accuracy of the predictions, they suggest (based on their associations in modern populations whose phenotypes are known) that he most likely had intermediate (blue-green) eye colour, dark brown or black curly or wavy hair, and dark or dark-to-black skin, with no derived allele for lactase persistence. These features are typical of the Western