Sex identification in some putative infanticide victims from Roman Britainusing ancient DNA

Previous study of infant burials has suggested that infanticide was routine ly practised during the Roman period in Britain. This, together with the ob servation that there is an adult sex imbalance in favour of males at many R omano-British cemetery sites, has raised the question of female infanticide . We attempted to investigate this possibility by identifying sex in some i nfant skeletons from Romano-British contexts using ancient DNA (aDNA) techn iques. Of 31 individuals sampled, set identification was successful in 13, of which nine were males and four females. These results are discussed int he light of previous work on DNA-based seeking of infant burials.