Lion bites on skeleton provide first evidence of gladiator's combat with wild beasts

Independent

24-04-2025

A Roman gladiator's skeleton has provided the first piece of physical evidence of combat between a human and a large cat, archaeologists said.
The skeleton, likely of a man who died between the ages of 26 and 35, shows bite marks on the pelvis from a big cat, which could have been a lion, archaeologists said in a new study published in the journal PLOS ONE.
The remains were discovered in the Driffield Terrace cemetery outside the city of York, UK. It was one of over 80 skeletons excavated there in 2004.
The burials at the site ranged from the early second century AD to the late fourth century AD, meaning the man was buried between 1,825 and 1,725 years ago.
A forensic examination of the skeleton found 'unusual' deep holes and bite marks on the pelvis in what the study described as a 'hugely exciting find'.
"We believe this to be the first example that a bite mark has been identified on such remains,' Prof Tim Thompson, the new study's lead author from Maynooth University in Ireland, said.
He said archaeologists had only ever found a few confirmed gladiator remains across regions that once formed the Roman Empire.
'For years, our understanding of Roman gladiatorial combat and animal spectacles has relied heavily on historical texts and artistic depictions,' the professor of anthropology said. 'This discovery provides the first direct, physical evidence that such events took place in this period, reshaping our perception of Roman entertainment culture in the region.'
The researchers used 3D scanning to examine the wounds on the remains of the gladiator who had been decapitated. What intrigued them were the unusual circular marks along his hip bones.
They scanned the marks and compared them to those left by zoo animals gnawing on bones. They found that marks from cheetahs, lions, tigers, and leopards closely matched those on the man's skeleton.
They concluded that the injuries occurred at the time of death and were caused by the big cat dragging the man along the ground.
"We could tell the bites happened at around the time of death,' Prof Thompson said. "So this wasn't an animal scavenging after the individual died. It was associated with his death."
He said the pelvis was not a body part that a lion would usually attack, suggesting the gladiator had been fighting and was incapacitated before the lion bit him and dragged him from the hip.
The skeleton was discovered in a grave with two other human remains and overlaid with bones of a horse. Previous analysis of the bones suggested it was that of a Bestiarius, a gladiator sent into spectacle combat with beasts.
Malin Holst, lecturer in osteoarchaeology at the University of York, said she had never seen anything like this in her 30 years of analysing skeletons.
'The bite marks were likely made by a lion, which confirms that the skeletons buried at the cemetery were gladiators, rather than soldiers or slaves, as initially thought and represent the first osteological confirmation of human interaction with large carnivores in a combat or entertainment setting in the Roman world,' Ms Holst, a co-author of the study, said in a statement.
Additional analysis of the remains showed the man had spinal and shoulder injuries from overloading his back. He also had signs of inflammation in his lungs and thighs and his bones showed that he had recovered from childhood malnutrition.
'This is a hugely exciting find because we can now start to build a better image of what these gladiators were like in life, and it also confirms the presence of large cats, and potentially other exotic animals, in arenas in cities such as York and how they too had to defend themselves from the threat of death,' Ms Holst said.
'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, well beyond the centre of core Roman territories. An amphitheatre probably existed in Roman York, but this has not yet been discovered.'