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From: "Rob" <>
Subject: Re: Most recent common ancestors
Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2006 22:14:28 -0000
References: <dqf5c5$rl4$1@newsg1.svr.pol.co.uk> <20060116174656.44B098BCDB8@smtp2.freeola.net>


One skull doesn't make a burial ground Roy. In fact the burial practices of
Neolithic man are so well known now that one skull would be called a chance
find and nothing more

Rob
""Roy Stockdill"" <> wrote in message
news:...
>> From: "Rob" <>
>
>> A reason for not accepting the theory that as been presented is Cheddar
>> man
>> discovered in 1903. DNA was extracted from the skeleton and this was
>> compared with a class of boys in or around Cheddar. The teacher also had
>> DNA taken. Upon examination there was ( apparently) enough markers to
>> suggest that the teacher was a descendent of this early man who if memory
>> serves me right dated to the Mesolithic period or some 9000 years ago.<
>
> A somewhat lesser known case is that of Heckmondwike Man, whose
> remains were found in 1894 by the prominent Victorian Yorkshire
> anthropologist Sir Arnold Obadiah Hardwick-Shufflebottom, of
> Shufflebottom Hall, Gomersal, during secret excavations round the
> back of the Municipal Gasworks in Bogg Lane. The archaeological
> dig had to be the subject of a strict blackout because the site had
> long been the focus of local controversy, being regarded by the
> locals as having mystical associations with the ancients and the
> venue for the annual Summer Solstice celebrations of the
> Heckmondwike, Batley and Cleckheaton Druids' Circle, at which Druids
> and their womenfolk traditionally danced naked in nothing but their
> clogs round a 100-feet tall candy-striped maypole to the strains of
> 27 nude fiddlers, 5 nude one-armed trumpeters and a one-legged
> drummer playing On Ilkla Moor Baht 'At. Had it become known that this
> sacred place was being violated by archaeologists there would
> certainly have been a riot, thus the local constabulary was busily
> employed in persuading curious spectators to move on with the aid of
> a sharp tap to the side of the head with a truncheon. Thus, the
> details of Sir Arnold's sensational discovery of Heckmondwike Man did
> not emerge fully until many years later.
>
> The gasworks was also believed to be the site of a Stone Age burial
> ground, a fact which was proven when Sir Arnold dug up the skull of a
> male human that was subsequently dated to the Neolithic period about
> 3,500 BC when most of Yorkshire was swampland, except for Halifax
> which was so advanced in civilisation that they were already
> executing criminals on the infamous Halifax Gibbet and had a
> football team. A peculiarly distinguishing feature of Heckmondwike
> Man was that the top of his skull was completely flat, this unusual
> anotomical curiosity being eventually attributed to the fact that he
> had spent his entire life wearing some kind of headgear that was
> probably the forerunner of today's Yorkshireman's flat cap.
> Heckmondwike Man was clearly a very important personage, for
> alongside him was found the skeleton of a small, dog-like animal
> resembling a whippet, no doubt his favourite pet that had been laid
> to rest beside him, plus a symbolic earthenware jar ingrained with
> the remnants of what subsequent analyis proved to be some kind of
> Stone Age alcoholic drink not unlike Tetley's Best Bitter.
>
> Heckmondwike Man and his accoutrements lay almost entirely unnoticed
> for decades in the Alderman Clogferret Memorial Museum until very
> recently when scientists carried out DNA tests and discovered that
> virtually the entire population of Heckmondwike today is descended
> from him. This is why everyone in Heckmondwike wears a flat cap,
> drags a whippet round on a lead and drinks Tetley's Bitter.
>
> Roy Stockdill
> Web page of the Guild of One-Name Studies:- www.one-name.org
> Newbies' Guide to Genealogy & Family History:-
> www.genuki.org.uk/gs/Newbie.html
>
> "There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about,
> and that is not being talked about."
>
> Oscar Wilde
>


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