Bite Marks on Ancient Skeleton Reveal First Physical Evidence of Roman Gladiators Fighting Lions
Researchers compared the markings found on an ancient skeleton in England to bones that had been chewed on by cheetahs, lions, tigers and leopards in present-day zoos
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Roman texts and artworks are full of depictions of gladiators, the men who fought each other or wild animals to entertain large audiences in amphitheaters. However, because the Romans cremated their dead for many years, archaeologists have not found many gladiator bodies.
Now, researchers say they’ve discovered the first physical evidence of human-animal gladiatorial combat in Europe: bite marks on the skeleton of a young, muscular man that were likely made by a lion, according to new research published in the journal PLOS One.
For the study, scientists revisited a set of human remains discovered in 2004 at a site called Driffield Terrace near York in northern England. There, archaeologists unearthed more than 80 skeletons from between the first or early second century C.E. to the late fourth century C.E.
Nearly all of the bodies had belonged to men between the ages of 18 and 45 that had come from various parts of the Roman Empire. The remains showed signs of severe injuries, and many had been decapitated.
To the Romans, York was known as Eboracum. It was an important military outpost and city in northern Britain, which they called Britannia, between 71 C.E. and 400 C.E.
Based on the evidence, archaeologists suspect Driffield Terrace was a cemetery for gladiators—a rare find.
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Recently, researchers decided to take a fresh look at one particular skeleton that had unusual marks on the pelvis. They used modern forensic techniques to study the remains, including making 3D scans of the indentations. Working with zoos around England, they also obtained bones that had been chewed on by cheetahs, lions, tigers and leopards in captivity. Then, they made 3D scans of those, too.
Comparing the marks on the Roman gladiator’s skeleton to those on the zoos’ bones confirmed their hunch: He’d been bitten by a big cat, probably a lion.
But big cats usually bite their prey’s neck or head. So how did one end up clamping down on the man’s pelvis?
“We think this gladiator was fighting in some sort of spectacle and was incapacitated, and that the lion bit him and dragged him away by his hip,” says lead author Tim Thompson, an anthropologist at Maynooth University in Ireland, to BBC News’ Alex Moss and Victoria Gill.
The analysis suggests the bite marks occurred around the time of death, indicating that “this wasn’t an animal scavenging after the individual died,” Thompson adds. “It was associated with his death.”
The man’s head was cut off “either to put him out of his misery … or for the sake of conforming to customary practice,” the researchers write in the paper. After he died, he was placed into a grave with two other individuals. Then, the burial site was covered with horse bones.
Beyond revealing what happened to one unlucky gladiator, the bite marks also reinforce the idea that Britain’s Roman amphitheaters were “settings for brutal demonstrations of power,” says study co-author John Pearce, an archaeologist at King's College London, to BBC Wildlife magazine’s Dixe Wills.
“They make an important contribution to desanitizing our Roman past,” he adds.
Kathryn Marklein, an anthropologist at the University of Louisville who wasn’t involved with the research, echoes that sentiment. She tells the New York Times’ Kate Golembiewski that the lion bite marks reveal the prominent role state violence played in Roman culture and society. Spectacles like gladiator fights helped reinforce social roles and norms.
“The amount of resources—animal, human—that went into these spectacles to reinforce what it meant to be a Roman, and to be a good Roman, is staggering,” Marklein adds.
So far, archaeologists have not discovered an amphitheater in York, but they think one could be hiding somewhere beneath the historic city. Given Eboracum’s importance, it’s not surprising that gladiator battles took place there. But the new study does provide new evidence that such human-animal combat took place outside of Rome.
“We often have a mental image of these combats occurring at the grand surroundings of the Colosseum in Rome, but these latest findings show that these sporting events had a far reach,” says study co-author Malin Holst, an osteoarchaeologist at the University of York, in a statement.
The skeleton also offers clues about the man’s life. He had large muscles and was between the ages of 26 and 35. He’d suffered injuries to his spine and shoulder, which suggests his short life was filled with combat and hard physical labor.
Remains like these offer insights into “people’s lives that weren’t considered important enough to be written down, that were never part of the official record,” says Anna Osterholtz, a bioarchaeologist at Mississippi State University who wasn’t involved with the study, to Scientific American’s Gayoung Lee.
Ray Laurence, a historian at Macquarie University in Australia who wasn’t involved with the research, finds the team’s evidence to be “pretty compelling,” he tells the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Ellen Phiddian.
“It's a great detective story in terms of working out that a big cat was present,” he adds.
But the findings also raise new questions. One big one? “How ... do you get a lion from Africa to York?” Thompson asks the Guardian’s Ian Sample.
In the meantime, the skeleton is now on display at DIG: An Archaeological Adventure, a hands-on museum in York. The exhibition, titled “Life in Death in Roman Eboracum,” also includes a reconstruction of the gladiator’s face.
