The mystery of the 2,000-year-old corpse is solved

2023-12-20 18:33:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

The mystery of the 2,000-year-old corpse is solved

A scene depicting the defeat of the Sarmatian army by Roman forces in AD 175

How did a young man born 2,000 years ago near what is now southern Russia end up in the English countryside?

DNA experts have followed in his footsteps as they shed light on a key episode in the history of Roman Britain.

Research shows that the skeleton found in Cambridgeshire is that of a man from a nomadic group known as the Sarmatians.

It is the first biological evidence that these people came to Britain from the far reaches of the Roman Empire and that some lived in the countryside.

The remains were discovered during excavations to improve the A14 between Cambridge and Huntingdon.

The scientific techniques used will help uncover the usually untold stories of ordinary people behind major historical events.

They involve reading the genetic code in fossilized bone fragments that are hundreds of thousands of years old, which indicates an individual's ethnic origin.

To find the answers, a team from Durham University's archeology department used another analytical technique to examine his fossilized teeth, which have chemical traces of what he ate.

The analysis showed that by the age of six he was eating products, known scientifically as the C4 culture, which are abundant in the region where the Sarmatians were known to have lived.

Historical records indicate that Offord may have been the son of a knight, or perhaps his slave. They show that around the time he lived, a unit of Sarmatian cavalry included in the Roman army was sent to Britain./ CNA