16.10.2025

What bones reveal: Skeletons from Eastern Croatia were likely Roman soldiers who died in battle

Research team from the Universities of Zagreb and Tübingen and Archaeological Museum Osijek investigates human remains from the 3rd century CE with a combination of methods

Led by Dr. Mario Novak from the Institute for Anthropological Research in Zagreb, Croatia and Professor Cosimo Posth from the University of Tübingen, Germany a new study combines bioarchaeological, isotopic and ancient DNA methods to analyse pathological conditions, dietary patterns, and genetic affinities of seven Late Antique (3rd century CE) individuals who were recovered from a used water-well in the Roman period city Mursa (modern-day Osijek in eastern Croatia). Direct radiocarbon dates, available historic and archaeological records as well as biological and genetic characteristics strongly suggest that these individuals were Roman soldiers, victims of a catastrophic event occurring as the result of the so-called ‘Crisis of the Third Century’.

Two major battles occurred near the city of Osijek (Roman period Mursa) in Late Antiquity. The first one took place in 260 CE when the emperor Gallienus defeated the claimant to the imperial throne Ingenuus, and the second was fought between the emperor Constantius and the usurper Magnentius in 351 CE. Both battles were recognized by contemporary sources as some of the bloodiest battles in the history of the Roman Empire with thousands dying on all involved sides.

"We were inspired to study these individuals based on their unusual burial context and the large number of fatal injuries found on the skeletons," says Mario Novak, a Senior Research Associate at the Centre for Applied Bioanthropology, Institute for Anthropological Research in Zagreb and the first author of the study. 

"The sex and age-at-death of the studied individuals as well as the presence of multiple pathological lesions indicate these were the victims of some kind of a catastrophic event, most probably an armed battle," adds Slavica Filipović, archaeologist from the Archaeological Museum Osijek who led the excavations and one of the co-authors.

"Isotopic analysis indicates that the diet of the seven individuals from Osijek was quite uniform and identical to the diet of Roman soldiers as we know it from the contemporary historic sources," continues Dr. Mario Carić, postdoctoral fellow at the Centre for Applied Bioanthropology, Institute for Anthropological Research and one of the co-authors.

"All newly sequenced individuals from the Mursa mass burial display a high genetic diversity. The interesting fact is that none of the four individuals whose DNA was preserved in enough quantity were found to carry the local Iron Age genetic profile. One non-local ancestry found in the mass grave derives either from Northern/Central or Eastern Europe, and the other one from the Near East,” adds Orhan Efe Yavuz, PhD student at the Institute for Archaeological Sciences, Department of Geosciences, University of Tübingen, and one of the co-authors of the study.

“The presence of diverse genetic ancestries in a military setting aligns with historical accounts of Late Roman armies, which frequently incorporated ethnically diverse groups such as Sarmatians, Saxons, and Gauls. The coexistence of highly diverse genetic backgrounds among the genetically analysed individuals from Roman period Osijek, strengthens the interpretation of this burial having a militaristic origin," says Cosimo Posth, Professor and leader of the Archaeo and Paleogenetics Group at the University of Tübingen, who co-directed the study.

“All multidisciplinary lines of evidence combined in this study, including new direct radiocarbon dates, point towards the interpretation that the individuals dumped in this water-well derive from the aftermath of the catastrophic Battle of Mursa in 260 CE,” concludes Novak. 

University of Zagreb/JE, Public Relations Department, University of Tübingen

Publication:

Mario Novak, Orhan Efe Yavuz, Mario Carić, Slavica Filipović, Cosimo Posth: Multidisciplinary study of human remains from a 3rd century mass grave in the Roman city of Mursa, Croatia. PLOS ONE, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0333440 

Contact:

Prof. Dr. Cosimo Posth
University of Tübingen
Institute for Archaeological Sciences, Department of Geosciences 
Phone +49 7071 29-74089
cosimo.posthspam prevention@uni-tuebingen.de