The examination of a second or third century male skeleton found at Offord Cluny in Huntingdonshire has shown that the man was a Sarmatian. They were a nomadic people living in the south-east of modern Ukraine and in the regions to the east and into the Caucuses. They were noted for their skills as cavalrymen.
The man’s ethnicity and the fact that he had travelled so far in his lifetime is one more indicator of how the Roman Empire provided a mechanism for human mobility and of the potential of how diversified the population of Britannia could have been. One skeleton does not indicate the actual numbers involved but it does show the physical evidence for the presence of Sarmatians here.
The investigation is described on the BBC News website at DNA sleuths solve mystery of the 2,000-year old corpse
It is also described in the journal Archaeology at 2,000-Year-Old Skeleton of Sarmatian Man Identified in England
That article also includes a link to a 2021 report about what may be the burial of a Roman slave found at Great Casterton in Rutland.
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