DNA tests on ancient skeleton reveal First modern Britons had “dark to black” skin
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
The scientists are using evidence to assert something. Maybe it's flawed but unless you're going to publish and refute it, calling it "anti-european sentiment" based on nothing makes it seem a awful lot like you're the one being political.
I will refine my idea so that skin color is not useful for purposes of describing one race’s general superiority or inferiority.
If this appears like pseudo science, then because little is known and assumptions have to be made. For example they can't extract a full genome. But it is a game of probabilities and statistics. In absence of harder criteria, this is likely the most probable theory, therefore it is worth to be discussed.
Likewise, I am not sure how far and quickly was travel at the time or how far the ice had receded 10 kya, but its fair to assume they had fire and ships. Also the isles were connected to continental Europe at the time via doggerland. Maybe they were into timber trade or followed the big game like woolly Mammoths, which are attested 14 kya, or worse taken as slaves or otherwise driven by competing populations.
The article says that they did:
"...the ancient skull to obtain a few milligrams of bone powder. From this, they were able to extract a full genome,"
That's a pretty big assumption to make and reeks of pseudoscience.
Edit, more assumptions here:
> The results pointed to a Middle Eastern origin for Cheddar Man, suggesting that his ancestors would have left Africa, moved into the Middle East and later headed west into Europe,
Middle Eastern origin dating to the Neolithic, but they assume he had to have recently migrated from Africa, despite the fact that complex societies were developing in the Middle East during the time period described, and those populations were distinctly Eurasian.
So multiple 'assumptions', both of which are at best a stretch, to push this agenda. If his origin is indeed Middle Eastern who's to say he's not from Mesopotamia, Anatolia, Iran or even the Caucasus? The only 'proof' of African origin is that he's Middle Eastern...
Article and scientist went from science to agenda and advocacy pretty quick.
But this is just a hunch. My opinion here is not conclusive because they have not released any methods or data. Why not? From the wiki on Cheddar Man, looks like they may have had DNA contamination issues in the past:
"The 1996 results were not subjected to peer review and it was suggested that the sequence was from contaminating modern DNA."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheddar_Man#DNA_testing
Ancient DNA analyses and quantitative predictions are both very difficult, so their results should be considered suspect until actual methods and data are made available.