Leiden archaeologists Carol van Driel-Murray and Mark Driessen reconstructed how a man at the early Roman fort of Velsen was killed, about 2,000 years ago. In a new book, they combine archaeology, history, and forensics to study his largely intact skeleton.
Skeletons from the late Iron Age and early Roman era rarely survive, so this mostly intact one is a rare window on the period. It shows how bones, history, and forensic science together can still tell the story of violence done to one real person 2,000 years ago.
✦ Even 2,000 years later, patient science can still give a murder victim his story back.