A Young Man From The Steppe Died In Roman Britain

The Roman Empire connected some people from very distant places for the time. A new ancient DNA find corroborates ancient Roman historical records from the second century CE.

Highlights

• Ancestry outlier identified in rural Roman Britain dating to 126–228 cal. CE

• Genetically related to contemporary Sarmatian- and Caucasus-associated groups

• Stable isotope analysis reveals life history of mobility

• Deployment of Sarmatian cavalry to Britain in 175 CE is a plausible explanation

In the second century CE the Roman Empire had increasing contact with Sarmatians, nomadic Iranian speakers occupying an area stretching from the Pontic-Caspian steppe to the Carpathian mountains, both in the Caucasus and in the Danubian borders of the empire. In 175 CE, following their defeat in the Marcomannic Wars, emperor Marcus Aurelius drafted Sarmatian cavalry into Roman legions and deployed 5,500 Sarmatian soldiers to Britain, as recorded by contemporary historian Cassius Dio. Little is known about where the Sarmatian cavalry were stationed, and no individuals connected with this historically attested event have been identified to date, leaving its impact on Britain largely unknown. 

Here we document Caucasus- and Sarmatian-related ancestry in the whole genome of a Roman-period individual (126–228 calibrated [cal.] CE)—an outlier without traceable ancestry related to local populations in Britain—recovered from a farmstead site in present-day Cambridgeshire, UK. Stable isotopes support a life history of mobility during childhood. 

Although several scenarios are possible, the historical deployment of Sarmatians to Britain provides a parsimonious explanation for this individual’s extraordinary life history. Regardless of the factors behind his migrations, these results highlight how long-range mobility facilitated by the Roman Empire impacted provincial locations outside of urban centers.

Marina Silva et al., 'An individual with Sarmatian-related ancestry in Roman Britain" Current Biology (December 19, 2023).

Hat tip to Bernard Sécher's blog post "An individual of Sarmatian ancestry in Roman Britain" of today. Professor Sécher sums up the paper as follows (translated by Google from the original French with my slight editorial translation corrections):

Human remains have been discovered in an isolated grave near the village of Offord Cluny located in Cambridgeshire in the south-east of England. An osteological analysis showed that this individual is a young adult aged between 18 and 25 years old. The sex of the individual could not be determined from osteological analysis. A radiocarbon measurement on a tooth gave a date between 126 and 228 AD. 

They also analyzed the genome of this individual. The results showed that this individual was a man. The authors then carried out a Principal Component Analysis to be able to compare this genome with that of other ancient individuals. Interestingly it differs from all other genomes from Roman Britain. On the other hand, it is located close to the ancient genomes of Anatolia and the Caucasus. In particular, the genome has genetic affinities with individuals from the end of the Bronze Age of Armenia and the Alans belonging to the Sarmatian confederation, located north of the Caucasus[.]