Some of the oldest human DNA ever obtained in the United Kingdom can be found in the remains of ancient English and Welsh people. Scientists think Britain was occupied by two unrelated groups at the end of the last ice age.
A geneticist specializing in ancient said that finding the two ancestries so close in time in Britain is adding to the emerging picture of Europe. The research is published in a journal.
Two people were found in caves in England and Wales. The English and Welsh are both 15000 years old. The older remains and the more recent ones were found in different caves.
Britain used to be attached to continental Europe by a land bridge. The island was cut off by the sea as the climate warmed.
Neanderthals and wooly mammoths were part of the last ice age that ended around 12,000 years ago.
The histories of the individuals were revealed when they were compared to the previously analyzedDNA from West Eurasia and North Africa. The ancestors of the Gough's Cave individual arrived from northwestern Europe about 16,000 years ago, while the Kendrick's Cave individual appeared to have descended from a western hunter-gatherer group that arrived in Britain about 15,000 years ago.
The researchers performed chemical analyses of other bones and teeth found at the sites. The people who lived near the cave probably ate marine and freshwater foods.
The remains of a man were found in the cave. The remains of a man who died about 10,000 years ago were found in 1903.
According to the study, western hunter-gatherers were in Britain by around 10,500 years ago, but they didn't know when they first arrived in Britain.
The groups in the caves had different ways of doing things. The cave in Wales was mostly used for burial and not for occupation. The inhabitants of Gough's Cave were thought to be cannibals.
There is still a lot to know about when people came to Britain and how they interacted with each other.
Large Roundhouses and Roman Trinkets were found in the UK.
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