Once I was a clever boy learning the arts of Oxford... is a quotation from the verses written by Bishop Richard Fleming (c.1385-1431) for his tomb in Lincoln Cathedral. Fleming, the founder of Lincoln College in Oxford, is the subject of my research for a D. Phil., and, like me, a son of the West Riding. I have remarked in the past that I have a deeply meaningful on-going relationship with a dead fifteenth century bishop... it was Fleming who, in effect, enabled me to come to Oxford and to learn its arts, and for that I am immensely grateful.


Monday, 19 January 2026

Re identifying Beachy Head Woman


A while ago I posted about the debates around the skeleton found buried on the Sussex coast and known from the site as Beachy Head Woman or Lady and her ethnic origins. In this day and age the fact that she appeared to have sub-Saharan origins made her a celebrity for certain academics such as David Olusoga.

More recent research into the scientific evidence yielded by her bones has established that she was in fact local to the area and of the same racial type as many English people of long established indigenous origin.

The research is outlined in an article from BBC News at True origin of 'first black Briton' revealed
and in ones from the Natural History Museum at The changing story of the Beachy Head Woman  
from UCL at Roman-era Beachy Head Woman originated from Britain: new analysis and from the Journal of Archaeological Science  here


On the theme of those now long dead with some African ancestry I hope to link in a separate post to some recent discoveries of Anglo-Saxon burials, which do show evidence of some mixed-race ancestry, in the case of one grandparent. 


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