'Asian' burials from the Roman period found in London

[Imperial Dave]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-37452287

short but interesting article

[Tim]

Interestingly my wife heard this when it was broadcast and mentioned this over (a very early) breakfast.  I had planned to find it later today.  Thanks Holly.

If they were soldiers the news came just too late for the revised DBMM lists...

[Dangun]

Some of the reports read, "two were Asian – probably from ancient China."
I would be very interested to see what the "probably" was based on, and what exactly they meant by "Asia."

(I'm not just being pedantic, the authors of the DBX rules might be terribly confused to find that China is actually part of Asia... )

[Nick Harbud]

Some of the reports read, "two were Asian – probably from ancient China."
I would be very interested to see what the "probably" was based on, and what exactly they meant by "Asia."

(I'm not just being pedantic, the authors of the DBX rules might be terribly confused to find that China is actually part of Asia... )

Listening to the piece, this statement appears to be based upon use of facial reconstruction and shape recognition software.  The phrase used was '....mostly closely resembles..."  Make of it what you will. 

[Patrick Waterson]

Essentially quantum Asians, it would seem.

The good old method of using calipers and comparative skull measurements rather went out of fashion following WW2.  If people could just resurrect the Ahnenerbe's oriental data they would have a much more solid basis for comparison.  One can see this approach being less than thoroughly popular, of course.