Hello everyone! Was hoping to bump this thread a bit... as I have a personal "interest" in it - I'll explain why!
I've been a participant in DNA testing for a while now, and it appears to have finally "paid off!" I am most interested in Y-DNA for now since I lost my father in an accident at work, so I am doing this in honor of him. Also I love history - especially Roman and Greek history!
First off, I'm a member of the subgroup DF98 under U106, which I share with the House of Wettin - a lot of research has been done by my group leader Dr. McDonald (he's also in DF98). That was a surprise. Also we have the descendants of the Norman Odard de Dutton in my subgroup under DF98 - S1911 (which does have a connection to France via Y-DNA with a tester from Poitou-Charentes - we really need MORE testing in France - especially NE France!). Dr. McDonald used the matching Y-DNA profile of the Dutton and Warburton families of Cheshire to date their split and it lines up very well with the traditional inheritance of the Warburton estate by a Dutton. Keep in mind Dr. McDonald's dates for Big Y SNPs have been back up by ancient dna results from R1b and also fit nicely with the U106 result from Southern Sweden and these two Romano-British U106ers (6drif-3 and 3drif-16)... so he's on the right track.
My personal interest is in the cemetery as a whole (very interesting!) and especially the two U106ers! I match 6drif-3 at some SNP markers first found in my y-chromosome! My line of descent in common with him goes like this: U106-Z381-Z156-Z304/305/306/307-DF98-S1911-S1900/S1894-FGC14818/FGC14823/S4004-FGC14816/FGC14817! He's listed under Alex Williamson's big tree in a block of five SNPs including FGC14816 and FGC14817 that I share with a few other families. A Jarman family probably from Powys in Wales, and a Via family (possibly a NE French origin) who is a close match with a Staples (probably English) - Staples and Via both probably share a common ancestor/NPE event in the early American colonies in Virginia and Jarman is also an early American colonial immigrant who "may have been from Wales." Also the S4004 level clusters in Northern England and especially in Scotland. My "closest" match that has an Isles (or European) origin for sure is this 6drif-3 skeleton as funny as that sounds. I KNOW where he was from - or at least where he was buried
. Also interesting that my small subgroups starting with S1894 and S4004 have a lot of Scots in them... but generally from where the Romans would have been like in the East and Lowlands etc.
I have read all the reports... and it appears the Driffield cemetery was a good mix of people based on isotope and lead analysis... and while I'm very excited with the "Gladiator" theory and have watched the Channel 4 program "Gladiator:Back from the dead." That was pretty cool - I managed to figure out my ancestor's skeleton was examined and presented as the "heavyweight" or Murmillo gladiator because he was the tallest at about 183 cm and had that butterfly fracture on his right ulna etc - read that on the osteology report)... I have trouble drawing a parallel to the pit grave style cemetery of the known Gladiator cemetery in Ephesus. Many of our Driffield guys were buried in coffins and my 6drif-3 guy was buried very close to a possible grave mound that had the three guys in it with the bones from the four horses and evidence for possible feasting and also funeral monuments - chunks of worked stone. Also more evidence for some post holes and features that were probably not graves, but marked boundaries etc. The lack of grave goods and tombstones doesn't really bother me too much - I often wonder if they have been picked over by the residents of York in the preceding 1800 years since they were buried, and also there is great evidence for re-use of many tombstones in walls in the late Roman period aka tombstones from Chester (I think that is the right one... the biggest collection of Roman era tombstones - whichever English town in the North that has that)... so these guys could have had some type of marker and we would never know. Besides there have been plenty of tombstones found near Driffield and even a burial vault...
I have a hard time explaining the decapitations - whether they were ritual in nature as there is plenty of evidence for decapitation burial rites particularly in the NW of Southern England in the Oxfordshire region... or inflicted in interpersonal violent/battle/the arena etc.
At least for my guy 6drif-3... his pathology parallels some of the skeletons from the Battle of Visby mass grave (in particular the mass grave with the most armor in it - the nine mail hauberks etc) in that he has defensive wounds to his right arm in the form of sharp force trauma from a bladed weapon - 3 on his right ulna - and also the blunt force trauma butterfly fracture of the right ulna - almost like they hit it with a shield or something like on the channel 4 program. He lacked sharp force trauma to his cranial bones (helmet?) and many other skeletons I've read about at from execution cemeteries and unarmored combatants have a great deal of sharp force trauma to the skull - a very good target indeed. The armored skeletons from Visby (apparently at least the author's informed conclusion in a paper on sharp force trauma patterns in medieval battlefield graves) had most of their wounds on their arms, hands, and neck... just like my guy. I am unaware if he had any sharp force trauma to his torso. The pathology for his skeleton said about 90% complete so I'm pretty sure he had most of his ribs etc... and they don't list any sharp force trauma to the torso... so perhaps he also had armor on? The unarmored skeletons from Visby apparently had plenty of wounds to the torso. I try to interpret the data in a practical or realistic manner. Why chop a guy's arm several times and smash it... if you could instead stab him somewhere else or in his head? Also in some studies his decapitation is regarded as the manner of death and he is listed as a "possible" decapitation - so more likely dealt in combat since the head wasn't completely removed - part of the vertebrae was fractured etc.
Based on a lot of the stuff I've read like the different reports on battlefield trauma on existing medieval skeletons... and the isotope/lead analysis and the "exotic" background of many of these guys... and their stature and trauma etc etc... I tend to interpret them more as some type of soldier or auxiliary... also considering where my Y-DNA group DF98 clusters - around Mannheim and Worms along the Upper Rhine - though that is usually House of Wettin's subgroup S18823... my group branches off from Df98 at S1911 and is only really connected loosely to France. Or was his male line Iron Age migrants to Britain? There is evidence of locals being recruited into the Roman army in Britain around about 150AD (my guy 6drif-3 was "local" in his autosomal/admixture signature - so Ancient Briton, but he had a strange Carbon value when younger - teeth sample - 2 standard deviations from the local York average - in Britain this had been interpreted with eating more seafood - not millet according to a study in 2013 I think)... and evidence that units of British Roman units taking part in the Pius' Mauretanian war in the mid 2nd century AD (see Vivien G Swan's The Twentieth Legion and the history of the Antonine Wall reconsidered for pretty good evidence of North Africans serving in the Roman Army along Hardian's or Antonine Wall - a few of the Driffield guys according to their lead sample were most likely from the Medditerrean basin and of black or mixed ancestry - so possibly North African? We know the 3drif-26 guy was probably from the Near East/Syria area?).
Also interesting is that there were 4 out of six inhumations that were decapitated and buried much like the Driffield guys buried next to the Roman Fort at Inveresk in East Lothion, Scotland. There was also a burial near those inhumations of a whole horse... though they stated they were not positive it was wasn't Iron Age... but probably Roman since it was very close to the Roman period graves etc. This forst was used by a cavalry unit up until 160ish AD... it was a part of the Antonine Wall and a port in the East I'm sure for the Roman forces. There has to be a connection between that... but I can't say fore sure!
Ok I've probably taken up enough space with my hypothesis... and of course I would be equally excited if they were in fact Gladiators... I don't really buy the "criminal or slave" idea not beause of personal bias... but because I can't find a parallel of slaves or criminals buried in a coffin and with apparent respect in a prominent (based on surrounding graves etc) Roman cemetery - which I suppose just adds to the mystery of this cemetery right!
Cheers!
Charlie
