Face of first Brit revealed

The face of 'Cheddar Man', Britain's oldest nearly complete skeleton at 10,000 years old, is revealed for the first time and with unprecedented accuracy by UCL and Natural History Museum researchers. The results indicate that Cheddar Man had blue eyes, dark coloured curly hair and 'dark to black' skin pigmentation. Previously, many had assumed that he had reduced skin pigmentation. The discovery suggests that the lighter pigmentation now considered to be a defining feature of northern Europe is a far more recent phenomenon. The pioneering work was carried out by a team of UCL scientists, Natural History Museum Human Evolution and DNA specialists, and the world's foremost prehistoric model makers, for a new Channel 4 documentary, First Brit: Secrets of the 10,000 Year Old Man . In one of their most challenging human DNA projects to date - no British individual this old has ever had their genome sequenced - the Natural History Museum's ancient DNA lab's Professor Ian Barnes and Dr Selina Brace carried out the first ever full reading of Cheddar Man's DNA. Professor Mark Thomas and Dr Yoan Diekmann (both UCL Genetics, Evolution & Environment) then analysed Cheddar Man's DNA sequences to establish aspects of his appearance.