women serving in the Roman army??

[Arahne]

1. Remains of bone scabbard do not necessarily mean that sword was property of the deceased.
2. Weapons in ones grave do not necessarily mean that he or she is a member of roman army in any way.
3. possibility that a woman was accompanied with some unit in some specific moment does not mean that women served in roman army.

Don't use thesis that scholars stick to their theories, there is simple explanation for this, archeology is a science, needs a lot of proofs for modifiyng them.
haire

[Nathan Beal]

If I might add a little to this.

Just so I don't mislead anyone, I'm neither an Osteoarchaeologist or familiar with the report in question. I offer the following as a general observation.

From what I understand the sexing of skeletons is not as precise science as many might believe. There are some osteological features associated with males/females that are used to identify the sex of an inhumation. Different individuals exhibit these to different extents and there are cases where a conclusive assignment is difficult on osteological evidence alone.

My understanding is that when this is combined with significant damage to the skeletal remains (such as them being in the ground for a thousand years or cremation) the chance of making a definitive assignment of gender is reduced significantly (especially if parts of the skelleton are missing).

I don't believe the specialist quoted will have come to the conclusion that the sex of the inhumation is female on no evidence, but it is important to note that the evidence may be less than ideal for a definitive identification (hence the use of words like ‘likely’).

HTH
N.