DNA matched after 9,000 years!

Further to TRM’s blogs on DNA analysis, the following is a repeat from 8 February 2021…

Beyond coincidence?

Ever since “Tongariro Skulduggery” was published three years ago, so many TRM inmates and other readers have doubted and questioned or even scoffed at the basis of the plot – on the extreme unlikelihood of discovering two identical matching DNA after over 1600 years?

Usually, trout fishos and authors do not reveal the source of our information, but this fantastic story has been questioned so many times that SWMBO (She Who Must Be Obeyed is the History Consultant at TRM) advises that an explanation is needed.

This revealing post is to confirm and explain how a similar match has happened elsewhere after 9,000 years! Such is the miracle of DNA. For skeptics, this blog could be interpreted as a confession of where such an extremely unlikely plot might have come from?

The Natural History Museum unveils the face of ‘Cheddar Man’. The original skeleton of ‘Cheddar Man’.

At some time on our big OE in 1972-73 we visited the Cheddar Gorge caves near Bristol in Somerset, UK from where they had discovered, buried amongst numerous skeletal remains in 1903, a Mesolithic human male fossil, a complete skeleton discovered near Gough’s Cave in Cheddar Gorge, near the village of Cheddar. He is famous for being the oldest complete skeleton ever found in the UK. Radiocarbon dating indicated he died around 7150BC.

A reconstruction of the Cheddar Man.

At that time the British Isles were still linked to Europe by marshes and animals such as wild horses, antelope and bears lived there as confirmed by skeleton remains.

This is mentioned to tease all the healthy fishos out there who question “global warming” – it started back then.

The archaeologists’ analysis decided he was about 23 when he died from a violent blow to the head, so he may have been murdered. Interestingly, they deduced from the pattern of bone cuts being the same as on animal bones nearby, that these early ancestors were cannibals. This is also why the “Cheddar Man’ discovery was so valuable as most other skeletons from the post-ice-age period had been broken up to suck the marrow.

Then fast forward to the present. The DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) double helix had been discovered in the 1950’s. Now everyone is aware of DNA being used to solve murders, sheep are cloned and crops are genetically modified. People can now predict personal chances of living a long life or suffering from obesity, demystifying what were matters of providence, fate, or even morality.

In 1997 Oxford University Institute of Molecular Medicine finally extracted mitochondrial material from the teeth – a molar from the Cheddar Man. Then after taking swabs from local people, they announced they found a complete match, a blood relation after 9000 years.

Perhaps just as remarkable, Adrian Targett was a local history teacher who lived less than a mile from the caves i.e. his family had lived in the immediate area since the Mesolithic age.

The retired history teacher Adrian Targett, believes he bears an uncanny resemblance to the first modern Briton as well as sharing his DNA.

So suck on that… Tongariro Skulduggery’s DNA plot over 800 years was relatively recent.