CUTTING-edge technology has revealed decapitated skeletons - which archaeologists believed could have belonged to Roman gladiators - are likely to have originated from a few miles away from the terraced street where they were found.

York and Durham university academics said using genome technology, hailed as being the next step on from DNA analysis, had cast more light the origins of a set of Roman-age decapitated bodies, found by York Archaeological Trust at Driffield Terrace in the city.

It had previously been known several of the skeletons had suffered decapitation near the time of death and were all under 45 years old.

Although examining the skeletons revealed much about the life they lived, including childhood deprivation and injuries consistent with battle trauma, it was not until pioneering genomic analysis that archaeologists could start to piece together the origins of the men.

Despite variation in isotope levels which suggested some of the 80 individuals lived their early lives outside Britain, most of those sampled had genomes similar to an earlier Iron Age woman from Melton, Yorkshire.

A spokesman for the study said: "The poor childhood health of these men suggests that they were locals who endured childhood stress, but their robust skeletons and healed trauma, suggest that they were used to wielding weapons.

"“Whichever the identity of the enigmatic headless Romans from York, our sample of the genomes of seven of them, when combined with isotopic evidence, indicate six to be of British origin and one to have origins in the Middle East.

"It confirms the cosmopolitan character of the Roman Empire even at its most northerly extent.”