In 2017, archaeologists from the Museum of London Archaeology (MOLA) were excavating land near the village of Offord Cluny in Cambridgeshire, England. Among the 42 burials they uncovered was one that would reveal an intriguing story. MOLA studied the remains along with researchers from the Francis Crick Institute and Durham University Archaeology Department.
Their analyses showed this man likely grew up over 1,000 miles away from where he was buried. Using isotopes found in his teeth, which can indicate diet and location, they discovered he was raised in a dry, eastern European area until around ages 5-6. At this young age, he experienced two major dietary changes that signaled a migration westward toward Britain.
As a child in eastern Europe, his diet consisted mainly of millet and sorghum grains not native to the region. But as he grew, these foods disappeared and were replaced by more familiar wheat, barley, rye and fruits and vegetables.
The isotopes suggested he was no longer in his birthplace, but somewhere with a cooler, more continental climate unlike Britain.
To learn more about his origins, the researchers turned to ancient DNA analysis conducted by the Francis Crick Institute. This showed he was genetically very different from the local Roman-British population in Cambridgeshire at that time.
His DNA matched more closely to ancient people from Bronze Age Armenia and the Alans, a Sarmatian group from the early medieval period.
While DNA alone couldn’t prove he was born outside Britain, the isotope evidence clearly showed that as a young boy he consumed foods and water inconsistent with a British upbringing. It was this man himself, not his ancestors, who made the long journey west.
Previous burial evidence from Roman Britain suggests entire Sarmatian cavalry families may have joined forces sent to Britain by Emperor Marcus Aurelius in 175 AD.
After defeating invaders, Aurelius recruited 5,500 Sarmatian horsemen into the Roman legions. This offers one explanation for how our mystery man ended up in rural Cambridgeshire.
The Sarmatians occupied a vast region north of the Black Sea, and Rome increasingly relied on their formidable cavalry. Little is known about where the Sarmatian troops stationed in Britain, and no other individuals have been directly linked to this event.
But his extraordinary story of mobility across the empire highlights how connected the farthest provinces had become through Roman rule.
Regardless of what ultimately brought him so far from his Sarmatian homeland, this man’s burial emphasizes that the entire Roman world was deeply interwoven, from the Caucasus to rural Cambridgeshire.
Sources
Durham University | Marina Silva, Thomas Booth, et al., An individual with Sarmatian-related ancestry in Roman Britain. Current Biology, DOI:doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2023.11.049
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