Secrets of Scotland's 'Trimontium Man' unlocked by single 2,000-year-old tooth

New analysis on the remains of Trimontium Man - who was thrown into a pit in the shadows of one of Scotland’s largest Romans forts around 2,000 years ago - has shed new light on his identity.

The man, it is now known, was no legionnaire, but a local born and raised in the Scottish Borders close to Trimontium Fort which, at times, marked the northernmost frontier of the Roman Empire in Britain.

A facial reconstruction of Trimontium Man who was found buried in a pit in the shadows of one of Scotland's largest Roman forts. PIC: Trimontium Museum. | Trimontium Museum

Aged between 35 and 46 years old at the time of his death, a tooth was extracted from the man’s skull for strontium isotope analysis to test how traces of the element corresponded with that found in the local environment.

Results showed Trimontium Man likely came from an area between Moffat in the south-west to the Lammermuir Hills in the north-east.

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Rob Longworth, heritage resources development officer at the Trimontium Museum in Melrose, said the findings were “intriguing” and raised further questions about the man’s death during the time of Roman occupation.

Mr Longworth said: “The recent discovery that Trimontium Man, the 2,000-year-old skull found amongst the Roman archaeological treasures unearthed right here in the Scottish Borders, is in fact a son of the Borders is an intriguing discovery and poses as many questions as it answers.

“We now know that, like many of us, he grew up and lived in this remarkable landscape, but unlike us was firmly in the middle of one of the most tumultuous and turbulent periods of Scottish history – a fact that seems to have led to his untimely end in a Roman pit surrounded by the detritus of invasion and empire.”

Trimontium Man was discovered in the early 1900s during excavations around the site. His complete skeleton was found in an upright standing position eight feet deep within one of 107 pits discovered.

An iron spearhead was found alongside his skeleton, though the connection between the two is ambiguous and the weapon may have become dislodged from a neighbouring pit.

The recent testing was carried out by Professor Derek Hamilton at the Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre (SUERC) as part of the Francis Crick Institute’s 1000 Ancient Genomes from Great Britain project.

The research also found the man suffered terrible dental health. He had 23 surviving teeth and suffered from gum disease, abscesses, chips and cracks at the time of his death.

The analysis also placed the individual within the Early Roman Iron Age, coinciding with the first occupation of the fort of Trimontium, which lasted until around 120AD.

Trimontium was first built by the forces of Agricola in the late 70s AD and had the most northerly known amphitheatre in the Roman Empire, a bathhouse, barracks blocks, a mansion and four annexes dedicated to manufacturing, civilian housing, and training.

It was occupied on and off until 211 AD when the death of Emperor Septimius Severus caused a total Roman withdrawal from what later would be called Scotland.

The pits where Trimontium Man was found contained a vast range of objects, including large volumes of masonry from the fort, iron weapons, armour, brooches, animal bones, broken pottery and the remains of several humans.

Seventeen horse skulls were recovered from a single pit, with it suggested the animals were killed by a single blow to the head shortly before they were dumped, according to the museum.

The contents of the pits date from at least two different periods of occupation, the 80s AD and 180s AD, suggesting the fort may have been left behind as other threats on the frontier took priority. The findings offered by the tooth of Trimontium Man follow an earlier facial reconstruction by Professor Caroline Wilkinson.