Chinese in Roman Britain

[Emil Petecki]

Two of the skeletons have a morphology that suggests Asian ancestry

Am I not understanding something? How did they manage to narrow it down to China? They have two skeletons that appear to be of Asian ancestry, that doesn't need to be China at all. In fact, they could have never lived in Asia at all, just descendants of someone who came from there, even quite distant ones.

The remains of one teenage girl who was found at the site was also discovered with an ivory folding knife carved into the shape of a leopard.

Similar styles of knives have been found to be linked to Carthage.

It is possible she had been a slave captured during one of the many wars between Rome and Carthage, say the archaeologists.

During the long struggle between Claudius and Hannibal I believe. What kind of archaeologists are they?


Overall, even if these skeletons would prove to be of East Asian origin - what of it? That doesn't mean that they came there of their own free will, might have well been captured by the Parthians and then somehow ended up in the Roman Empire as slaves - spoils of war perhaps. That doesn't prove extensive relations between China and Rome at all, or that Rome was quite cosmopolitan, as we know that already. There's hardly anything shocking about it. We do get a proof that there were Asian people in the westernmost part of the Roman Empire, which given the ability to move relatively swiftly around the country is not that amazing either. It is not much more amazing that we have evidence of Romans from Syria there.