Mitochondrial DNA Testing
In 1996, Bryan Sykes of Oxford University first sequenced the mitochondrial DNA of Cheddar Man, with DNA extracted from one of Cheddar Man's molars. Cheddar Man was determined to have belonged to Haplogroup U5, a branch of mitochondrial haplogroup U, which has also been found in other Mesolithic human remains. Sykes got DNA from the 9,000 year old Cheddar Man's tooth, and from a 12,000 year old Cheddar tooth from the same cave.
Bryan Sykes' research into Cheddar Man was filmed as he performed it in 1997. As a means of connecting Cheddar Man to the living residents of Cheddar village, he compared mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) taken from twenty living residents of the village to that extracted from Cheddar Man’s molar. It produced two exact matches and one match with a single mutation. The two exact matches were schoolchildren, and their names were not released. They, like anyone else carrying haplogroup U5 today, share an ancestor of many thousands of years ago with Cheddar Man through his maternal line.
Read more about this topic: Cheddar Man
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