Beachy Head Woman, a Roman-era skeleton once hailed as the first known black Briton and who scientists later suggested may have been of Cypriot origin, has now been proven to originate in southern England.
The mystery of the skeletal personality change was finally solved after advances in DNA sequencing produced high-quality genetic data on the remains.
Forensic anthropologists had previously suggested, based on analysis of the skull, that the woman could be of sub-Saharan African descent, and in 2016 a plaque was erected “to commemorate the first black Briton”.
Doubts about this theory arose when initial DNA testing pointed to Cyprus as a more likely origin, although this result was not conclusive.
“She's come a long way,” said Dr Selina Brace of the Natural History Museum in London and senior author of the latest study. “She was seen as a public figure. Now she's being used to show how science is progressing. She's just a local girl who grew up in Eastbourne.”
The skeletal remains were discovered in 2012 in the collections of Eastbourne Town Hall, and details on the box it was found inside suggest that the skeleton was found at nearby Beachy Head in the 1950s.
Radiocarbon dating showed the woman died between 129 and 311 AD, consistent with the Roman occupation of Britain. Analysis of her skeletal remains indicates that she was between 18 and 25 years old at the time of her death and was 5 feet (152 cm) tall. The healed wound on her leg suggests a serious but non-fatal injury sustained at some point in her life. Dietary analysis of the carbon and nitrogen content of her bones also showed that her diet likely included a lot of seafood and that she lived in the area.
However, the story of the Beachy Head woman became even more intriguing when initial morphometric analysis of the skull was carried out. suggested that it originated in sub-Saharan Africa.a find featured in David Olusoga's 2016 BBC series Black and British: The Forgotten History (the segment was removed in later versions in response to updated findings).
“A number of features of the skull suggested that it could be from sub-Saharan Africa. However, everything was formulated with some caution,” said Professor Caroline Wilkinson, a forensic anthropologist at John Moores University who carried out the initial analysis and is co-author of the latest findings.
More recently, Wilkinson added, there has been a move away from classifying ancestors based on skull shape. “We know that facial differences are consistent across different populations,” she said.
When Brace and his colleagues tried DNA analysis in 2017, the results strongly suggested that the skeleton was not of African origin. the sign was removed. Cyprus was a closer match, but the results were inconclusive because the DNA was so degraded that only a tiny part of the genome could be recovered.
The latest analysis used a technology known as capture arrays, which is designed to extract tiny fragments of ancient DNA so that a more complete sequence can be pieced together. This resulted in a more than tenfold improvement in DNA coverage and showed that the Beachy Head woman was descended from the local Roman-era British population of southern England.
“It doesn't change the history of Britain,” Brace said. “It just changes her story and it’s our responsibility to correct that.”
The results were published in the journal Journal of Archaeological Science.
