A research project examining a Roman cemetery in the southern Italian town of Vagnari has discovered the skeletal remains of East Asian ancestry, the first such person to have known to have lived in the Roman Empire.

Heritage-Key reported that the discovery was announced at academic event in Toronto, Canada by researchers from McMaster University.  They carried out DNA tests on the remains, which confirmed that the man was of East Asian heritage on his mother’s side and had lived sometime in the first to second century AD, in the early days of the Roman Empire.

It is likely that the man was actually a slave. The site of Vagnari was an imperial state where other slaves lived and worked, producing iron implements and textiles.

The man’s surviving grave goods consist of a single pot. About 70 other skeletons have been unearth from the Vagnari cemetery, with tests showing that most of them were born at or near this estate.

“How this particular individual ended up down in Vagnari is an intriguing story and that’s what makes this find very exciting,” said team member Dr. Jodi Barta, who analyzed the DNA.

See also: Excavations in the Roman cemetery at Vagnari, 2008 Preliminary report