London: The earliest Britons were black-skinned, with dark curly hair and possibly blue eyes, new analysis of a 10,000-year-old skeleton has revealed.

Scientists at the Natural History Museum have used pioneering genetic sequencing and facial reconstruction techniques to prove that the first hunter-gatherers to inhabit Britain successfully were far darker in complexion than previously thought.

The groundbreaking discovery was made in a "stroke of luck" after archaeologists found scraps of DNA in the ear of the Mesolithic "Cheddar Man", the oldest complete skeleton found in the UK and one of the museum's most treasured specimens.

A reconstruction by Dutch experts of the face of Cheddar Man who is believed to have been one of the first modern Britons about 9000 years ago.

They cross-referenced the genomes of modern inhabitants of Cheddar, near Gough's Cave in the Cheddar Gorge, where the remains were discovered in 1903, as well as other fossils from across Europe.