Ancient Britons who built Stonehenge had dark skin, scientists reveal

Independent

04-03-2025

The majority of Europeans living 5,000 years ago, including those who built Stonehenge, may have had dark skin, a new study suggests.
It was already believed that Britain's early inhabitants, such as Cheddar Man, who lived 10,000 years ago, had dark skin and blue eyes before paler skin tones then emerged as a dominant trait years later.
But now researchers the University of Ferrara in Italy say this change did not happen until centuries later than previously thought.
Scientists analysed data from 348 genomes — the entire set of DNA instructions — from human remains of individuals who lived between 45,00 and 1,700 years ago.
It was calculated that the vast majority (92 per cent) of those living in Europe in the Paleolithic period of the Stone Age, between 13,000 and 35,000 years ago, had dark skin and 8 per cent had 'intermediate' skin tones. However, the study suggests none had pale skin.
This remained the norm for thousands of years, with DNA from the Iron Age, between 1,700 and 3,000 years ago, still showing 55 per cent of people had dark skin and 27 per cent had intermediate skin. They also found just 18 per cent had pale skin.
There are about 26 genes associated with the production of melanin, which produces darker skin, and two specific types, eumelanin and pheomelanin, determine skin colour, hair and eye colour.
Because skin and hair are not preserved in fossils, experts used the genetic code from human remains and compared it to data from modern Europeans, to predict the skin, hair and eye colour of ancient people.
Scientists know that modern humans migrated from Africa to Europe and Asia about 60,000 to 70,000 years ago. As humans migrated into regions with lower ultraviolet (UV) radiation light, pigmentation became more common.
As a result, these humans evolved to become lighter-skinned to adapt to allow more UV light to penetrate their skin, helping their bodies to produce vitamin D — which is vital for maintaining healthy bones and muscle.
In comparison, darker skin contains more brown and black pigments than pale skin is better at protecting against UV damage from sunlight.
However, for decades scientists assumed humans rapidly developed lighter skin tones after migrating from Africa, but this latest research suggests it far more gradual and Britons who built Stonehenge were likely to have had dark features, Silvia Ghirotto, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Ferrara in Italy explained.
The study notes: 'By a probabilistic approach, we showed that eye, hair and skin colour changed substantially through time in Eurasia.
'It was reasonable to imagine that the first hunting-gathering settlers, who came from warmer climates, had mostly dark pigmentation.
'What was less expected was the long persistence of their phenotypes.'
It added: 'Things changed afterwards, but very slowly, so that only in the Iron Age did the frequency of light skins equal that of dark skins; during much of prehistory, most Europeans were dark-skinned.'
The study has been published on the pre-print server bioRxiv, meaning it's yet to be peer-reviewed.