A human skeleton found in a box in the basement of Eastbourne town hall in 2012, has, not for the first time, caused some controversy.

Known as the ‘Beachy Head Lady’, her remains were discovered during a study of 250 skeletons in the council’s collection. She was found to be a Roman woman with recent sub-Saharan African ancestry, leading to her being called the ‘first black Briton’ and ‘one of the earliest Africans in Britain’. Now a new study has found that she was, in fact, a light-haired native Briton.

The African claim was always controversial. Archaeologists hailed it as evidence that Britain has always been multicultural. Others, who felt the scientists had an agenda, now feel vindicated by the discovery that she actually had blue eyes and light hair.

Are they right to feel this way? And are archaeologists and scientists too ready to project modern values into the past?

First the science. As part of the original study, a forensic examination of the Beachy Head Lady’s skull found traits ‘consistent’, to use the researchers’ word, with an individual of sub-Saharan African ancestry – a rare case of someone with this background being found this early, and this far north, in Europe.

Public interest was immediate, and strong. Eastbourne exhibited a clay model of the young woman’s head, with dark skin, eyes and wavy hair. In his 2016 book Black and........

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