Papers by Katherine Eaton
The Museum of London selected four individuals (two females, two males) for multi-disciplinary sc... more The Museum of London selected four individuals (two females, two males) for multi-disciplinary scientific analyses in order to establish their ancestry, aspects of their personal appearance and health. We also re-interpreted their burial context in order to better understand how identity was constructed and expressed in this unique Roman settlement. Our study discovered the presence of people with Black and White European ancestry, some of whom had migrated from the southern Mediterranean. The re-analysis of their funerary context allowed us to explore the extent to which we can assert African identities in Roman Britain using material culture. The most surprising result was that Harper Road woman’s chromosomes were male, and by comparing her grave-goods with recent finds, we were able to show how they were likely part of a wider southeast British indigenous response to the Claudian conquest. Overall, our experience of undertaking a multidisciplinary study served to further underline the need for these different techniques to be used in combination when investigating past identities. The mtDNA results were very broad and required the mobility isotopes to better understand their significance. The aDNA evidence for disease was disappointing but did confirm the osteological analysis, but the most successful aspect of the project in terms of public engagement and the creation of content was the determination of hair and eye colour.
American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 2019
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Papers by Katherine Eaton