GARFORTH, ENGLAND—The Guardian studies that 1,600-year-old skeletal stays thought to have belonged to an aristocratic Roman girl have been discovered in a lead coffin in an historic cemetery of about 60 burials in northern England. Initial evaluation suggests the burials in the cemetery date to the later Roman and early Saxon eras, in keeping with David Hunter of West Yorkshire Joint Services. Some of the graves held Saxon knives and pottery, and among the useless might have held Christian beliefs. “The presence of two communities using the same burial site is highly unusual and whether their use of this graveyard overlapped or not will determine just how significant the find is,” Hunter stated. The burials can be carbon dated, and chemical evaluation of the bones will try to find out what the individuals ate and the place they lived, he concluded. To examine one other Roman burial in England, go to “Identifying the Unidentified.”
