Were the builders of Stonehenge black?

In recent years the study of human ancient DNA – extracted from excavated remains rather than living people – has become so popular that scientists are trying to clamp down on the number of samples taken from long-dead individuals.

The research keeps coming, however, and it can be hard to keep up. One recent project might have passed unnoticed outside of its specialism, but for one thing: Silvia Ghirotto, one of the scientists, told a journalist the people who built Stonehenge probably had ‘dark features’.

In other words, they were black.

The new study, from the University of Ferrara and published in the online journal bioRxiv, analysed ancient DNA from 348 people who died across Eurasia between 45,000 and 1,700 years ago. It found a more or less steady shift during that time from dark to lighter hair, eyes and skin, occurring at a slower rate than had previously been suspected. For most of those years, Europeans were browner than they are now.