Ancient Chinese skeletons in London change everything we know about Roman history

The remains of two individuals found in a London graveyard could change our how we see humanity’s history.

An investigation of the bones, discovered in a Roman burial place, dated the remains to between the 2nd and 4th Century AD and found these individuals were likely ethnically Chinese.

However, the new study, published in The Journal of Archaeological Science, was not based in a DNA analysis, but rather in forensic methods typically used to determine if an unknown skeleton is of Asian, African or European ancestry.

To reach their conclusion, the study team examined dental enamel samples from over 20 sets of human remains. The discovery challenges the conventional view that Roman Britain, and specifically its city of “Londinium,” was a fairly homogenous society.

Chinese and Romans had more Interaction than we Thought

The find also indicates the Roman and Chinese empires may have had more interplay than many historians had thought. It would also indicate that trade between the two empires happened outside the famed Silk Road.

“The expansion of the Roman Empire across most of western Europe and the Mediterranean led to the assimilation and movement of many ethnically and geographically diverse communities,” the study team wrote in their report.  “Its power and wealth meant that it also had trade connections for raw materials and products, such as silk throughout Europe, Africa and also to the east, including India and China.

“Many people traveled, often vast distances, for trade or because of their occupation, for example in the military, or their social status, for example if they were enslaved,” the researchers added.

There are, however, a few significant issues with the study’s conclusion. For one, a lot of the specimens were fragmented, with percent of the samples having just two telltale attributes to score.

“This degree of missing data can affect classification accuracies, particularly among the sample having two or less (sic) traits,” the team admitted.

The team recognized that they used a somewhat a subjective approach, and the methods are based on modern populations outside of the territories that formed the Roman Empire.

“The population affiliation divisions used here may disguise or fail to find many affiliations because they are subjective, and morphology varies between individuals and over time,” the report said.

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Image credit: Museum of London

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