Archaeologists find Maximus and mates

YORK - Archaeologists investigating an ancient Roman burial site in Britain have identified what may be the world's best-preserved remains of gladiators and other arena fighters who entertained audiences through bloody confrontations with wild animals.

Eighty skeletons have been unearthed at the site in Driffield Tce, southwest of the centre of York, over the past decade.

One man appears to have been killed by a large carnivore - almost certainly a lion, tiger or bear. Others have weapon impact damage and many of them have specific features, including marks on their bones, consistent with tough training regimes.

"Our lead theory is that many of these skeletons are those of Roman gladiators and others who died in the arena," said the archaeologist leading the investigation, Kurt Hunter-Mann of York Archaeological Trust.

The discovery - the subject of a Channel 4 documentary - is of international importance and promises to shed new light on life in Roman Britain.

One important piece of evidence is the unusually high number of men with their right arms markedly longer than their left - a feature mentioned in ancient Roman literature in connection with gladiators.

About a quarter of the 80 skeletons excavated at the York site display this characteristic, and around half of those have particularly significant asymmetry, with right arms between 1 and 1.8cm longer than their left, according to a detailed survey of the material carried out by forensic anthropologists at the University of Central Lancashire.

Almost all the skeletons are of extremely robust males and are mostly above average height - facts consistent with a gladiatorial interpretation.

The skeletons discovered at York date from the late first century AD to the 4th century AD.

- INDEPENDENT