Category: Archive
At some point in the late 20th century, the Oxford University medical geneticist became the “world’s first genetic archaeologist.”
In the process, being also a natural-born publicist, he has made one aspect of the cutting-edge technology more accessible and interesting to the layperson.
There was the Cheddar Man, Britain’s oldest complete skeleton, whose remains were first excavated in Somerset in 1903 and carbon dated to 9,000 years ago. Sykes extracted DNA from the skeleton’s molar and then, with everything short of a drum roll, in a TV broadcast from a local schoolroom, he announced that the history teacher was a close match.
Sykes was involved, too, in the case of