Copyright Weekly Reader Corporation Oct 17, 1997
Adrian and Catherine Targett enjoy tracing their respective family's
genealogy in their spare time.
Genealogy is the study of family trees.
Until lately, Catherine was the clear winner in the search for distant
relatives. She traced her ancestral
roots back 12 generations.
Cheddar Man
But then came astounding news from Bryan Sykes, a professor of genetics
at Oxford University. Sykes
discovered that Adrian Targett is related to a pile of prehistoric
bones, otherwise known as the "Cheddar
Man."
The Cheddar Man belonged to a group of ancient huntergatherers who lived
in what is now England
9,000 years ago, say scientists. Hunter-gatherers are people who forage
for food in the wild.
Agriculturethe cultivation of plants and animals for food-was not
established in England until 3,000 years
after Cheddar Man lived.
Scientists unearthed Cheddar Man 94 years ago in a cave in the town of
Cheddar, where Adrian and
Catherine Targett live. Studying those bones a few years ago, Professor
Sykes found an ancient piece of
DNA in one of the teeth.
DNA Comparison
With that DNA in hand, Sykes decided to see if Cheddar Man was the
ancestor of anyone currently in the
Cheddar area. So he collected DNA from local residents and compared
their samples with the Cheddar
Man's DNA. Lo and behold, the prehistoric DNA was almost identical to
Adrian Targett's!
"I [had] no idea that any of my ancestors lived here" said Targett,
whose house is just 0.8 kilometers (0.5
miles) from the cave where the Cheddar Man was found.
"I'm thinking of writing to the Marquess of Bath, who owns these caves,
and saying I'd like my cave
back," Targett added."All those times I'd visited this cave before, and
I'd never realized I was going
home."
[Photograph]
Caption: Above left: Adrian Targett kneels in the cave near his home,
where the Cheddar Man was first found.
Above right: The fossil skeleton of Cheddar Man, which now hangs in a
British museum.
[Photograph]
Caption: Above left: Adrian Targett kneels in the cave near his home,
where the Cheddar Man was first found.
Above right: The fossil skeleton of Cheddar Man, which now hangs in a
British museum.