by Jude Seal
She has been called the ‘Beachy Head Woman’ since the first time her remains were identified amongst a collection of other boxes of human remains held in storage by Eastbourne Borough Council on England’s south coast, where, after decades of obscurity on the shelf of a museum store, she became the object of both cutting edge science
and subsequently, the focus of one of the uglier aspects of twenty first century historical scholarship, the so called “culture war.”
Dr Jude Seal investigates what we really know about the Beachy Head Woman and asks what does her journey into the public domain tell us about archaeology and its sometimes troubled relationship with the modern media.
I first became aware of the individual known/ as ‘Beachy Head Woman’ or ‘Beachy Head Lady’ through a brief mention in a news story in the local paper of a relative’s home on the South Coast.
The story referred to a woman of Sub-Saharan African origin, who had been identified as having grown up and lived locally, during the third century CE. Given my interest in both historical nomadic societies and in stable isotope analysis I decided to dig a bit deeper. I found there had been a cranio-facial reconstruction produced, and that the remains had been shown in a BBC documentary regarding Black Britons, and the history of the African diaspora in Britain. At the time I also found that another memorial to the woman had been removed, and multiple stories in the tabloid and broadsheet press, as well as online, repudiating the claim that the remains were of a woman of African origin and that DNA analysis had shown her to be from Cyprus.
At first this would appear to be a simple case of a disconnect between archaeological assessment and the public understanding of DNA analysis. A closer examination however showed that there were deeper issues involved than there might seem to be on the surface, and that somehow even some of the basic facts regarding the case had been
misreported or misrepresented and that, as a result, the case can be seen as a shocking example of the misinterpretation, misrepresentation, and mishandling of bioarchaeology by the media.
Ultimately the case would create both a media storm and a scientific tangle which would not be partially unravelled until 2025, and a case about which, even then, questions remain.
THE STORY
The official story is that the remains of the Beachy Head Woman were found in a box marked ‘Beachy Head’ in either ‘1956’ or ‘1959’ amongst a large collection of remains held in storage in the basement of Eastbourne Town Hall. This collection of remains was examined, beginning in 2012, as part of a project called ‘Eastbourne Ancestors’.
Initial examination as part of the project identified the person as female, relatively young and not particularly tall.
The skull was one of several sent for further examination and for craniofacial reconstruction at Dundee University. It was here where it suggested that, based on the osteoprofile, Beachy Head Woman was likely of sub-Saharan African origin.
Radiocarbon dating placed the remains as dating from the third century CE.
However, stable isotope analysis – which uses chemicals found in bones and teeth to create a geographic profile of where a person lived during the time before death, and where they spent their childhood, respectively – showed that she had spent almost all of her life in Sussex.
The individual was likely therefore either to have arrived on these islands at a very young age, or to have been born here.
It was in this context that her case, and the associated cranio-facial reconstruction suggesting what she may have looked like, drew media attention, including her inclusion in a production by the BBC.
However, news sites would later go further reporting that ‘DNA analysis’ had ‘proven’ that she in fact, to quote the Times and the Daily Telegraph, ‘was from Cyprus’.
This led to a number of articles in other newspapers repeating these findings, usually citing the article from the Telegraph as the source of the information about her alleged origin and this led to a memorial marker in the nearby village of East Dean being removed.
Online, this became a culture war issue, with the historian David Olusoga being attacked for having made the claims, as well as a barrage of comments about supposed bias by the BBC and supposedly ‘woke’ academics.
So by the media accounts – there is a historical narrative including an alleged mistake, or a misinterpretation, which is followed by a correction – not a particularly unusual situation in academic research.
However the reality was far less clear, and far more complicated.
THE PROBLEM
The first problem springs from the reporting itself.
The Telegraph article stated that the Francis Crick Institute had carried out DNA analysis of Beachy Head Woman’s remains and had found that she was from Cyprus. Unfortunately for other news sites – including the Daily Mail – which would go on to repeat these same statements, the Telegraph’s first article was wrong on certain key facts.
Firstly, the Francis Crick Institute had nothing to do with the case of Beachy Head Woman at all. They had been wrongly named by the Telegraph, which had later corrected the article online, but unfortunately after the information had been reproduced extensively elsewhere.
Secondly, the way in which the DNA results were presented in the ‘updated’ findings which were cited by the newspapers was not in any way complete at that time.
Instead, the origin of the new interpretation appears to have been a blogpost by an individual related to the original project, who stated that DNA results had established that the Beachy Head Woman had originally come from Cyprus. There was no actual data regarding the DNA analysis, no details of the sequencing, and no details of the result.
Furthermore, as they were presented in 2018, the DNA results did not make clear sense.
Given the diversity of human populations, even in the period in question, it is very rare to find any one population that is completely from any single geographical location.
A simple way to explain this is via the example that a single great grandparent is represented in 1/8th of an individual’s DNA make up – one generation further back 1/16th, and so on.
Examples of this can be seen in the fact that David Cameron, Boris Johnson, and the late Queen Elizabeth II were all related via George II.
As a result DNA is rarely so definitive. The ‘updated findings’ stated that DNA analysis had been carried out in 2019 and this had shown that Beachy Head Woman was ‘likely’ from Cyprus.
No actual study of the DNA had at that time been published, and when contacted in 2024 the Natural History Museum, who were actually responsible for the analysis, stated that they had been able to extract DNA from Beachy Head Woman, but that the sequencing
was still be analysed and that the results would be published in due course.
This means that at best the original ‘updated findings’ were only the very preliminary results and were likely to have been a lot less definitive than how they were presented in the news stories which surrounded the discovery.
The definitive study was only published in 2025 – so any actions taken by organisations and the media prior to this were not based on peer reviewed scientific study.
Given the absence of these published results, the original osteoprofile could not be so readily dismissed, given it was based on best practice, and is based on metrics that have been developed from thousands of sets of skeletal remains in numerous studies over decades.
It is important to note that these metrics do exhibit significant overlap, and can be affected by multiple different influences – from diet to age to natural variation. As such an osteoprofile is often indicative, but is not definitive.
The response to the updated findings which were put out in 2019 – including attacks on David Olusoga, on the BBC, and removal of a sign memorialising the Beachy Head Woman- were therefore based entirely on assumptions made under then unknown circumstances.
It is worth noting that the presence of individuals from Sub-Saharan Africa in Britain in the period in question was not something which was in dispute in academic archaeology and history.
Several years before the research on Beachy Head Woman it had been confirmed that the “Ivory Bangle Lady”, whose remains were excavated in York in the early part of the twentieth century and were analysed in 2012, had Sub-Saharan African ancestry, had lived in the Mediterranean, and was implied by grave goods to have been a Christian.
Indeed the only reference to Beachy Head Woman in the original run of David Olusoga’s book ‘Black and British’ is in passing when discussing the discovery of Ivory Bangle Lady.
Multiple studies published and publicised in 2025 alone have identified individuals from Sarmatia in Britain during the Roman period, and reason studies of several sets of remains from Anglo-Saxon sites have shown individuals with direct, recent, African ancestry – as shown by DNA analysis. As such the finding of an individual with some Sub-Saharan African ancestry within the period was neither impossible nor implausible at the time.
As such the attacks on Olusoga were far from justified – the book and the TV series were produced in between 2015 and 2016, before even the preliminary results of the DNA analysis – the scientific report on which, crucially was never published – were available for consideration.
The origin of Beachy Head Woman as a culture war issue was not one which came from within academia – it was one which appears to have entirely sprung from questionable interpretations from a still unknown source and failures of fact checking by journalists who can be argued to have had an agenda around and against the idea of an early Britain which was multicultural and diverse.
From a perspective of archaeology there are numerous technical questions regarding how the Eastbourne Ancestors project was handled and a deeper examination of the media involvement revealed more questionable findings, interpretations, and a series of failures of fact checking which could almost be a case study in how, beneath layers of
noise and politics, truly brilliant science and a deeply human story can simply become lost.
ORIGIN STORIES
Beachy Head Woman was likely from and spent most of her life in East Sussex.
This is one fact which has been clear from the beginning of the investigation – and the source for this was some of the analysis which was carried out before the original cranio-facial reconstruction was carried out.
The source for this assertion is the stable isotope analysis which was carried out early on in the analysis alongside the radio carbon dating of the remains. This is a form of analysis which uses the chemical signatures laid down in bone (which undergoes multiple changes over an individual’s life) and teeth (which store chemical signatures from the time of their formation – the case of adult teeth, early childhood) which come from the individual’s diet.
These signatures are then used to establish a geographic profile of the area in which the individual lived. The fact that Beachy Head Woman was either born in Sussex or came there very early in her life had been never disputed.
By that simple definition it has always been possible to categorise her as having been ‘British’.
It is her possible heritage which became a culture war issue – but to understand how and why the controversy arose we need to examine how the Eastbourne Ancestors project came about in the first place.
[Copyright Dr Jude Seal]
One question which has remained unanswered in all of the attention given to the case is how the remains studied in the Eastbourne Ancestors project came to be in the condition they were in in the first place. Per the Eastbourne Ancestors project the remains were stored in boxes in the basement of the Town Hall and the Heritage department
were ‘uncomfortable’ with this.
Examining records and news stories around the council’s heritage work it would appear that they were at some time part of the collection held in the Gilderidge Park Museum – part of Gildridge Manor which was also home to the Towner Art Collection – which is now housed in a purpose built gallery.
The Museum closed in the late 2000s, but even before this some of the decision taken around its operation were questionable.
When the museum closed there was little public information about what would happen to the collection and it appears that it was simply put into storage – but without an kind of detailed inventory. This means that much of the context of some of the remains – including those of Beachy Head Woman – was either unknown or became lost at this point.
While academic studies around Beachy Head Woman provide much context about Roman Sussex – they often omit that the actual context from which these remains were excavated is an assumption.
The remains were found in a cardboard box labelled simply ‘Beachy Head’ and one of two potential years for the find.
This means that while the remains were likely found on this section of the Sussex Downs, near the South Downs Way, nothing else is known.
As such much of the context in the archaeological sense is absent. We are therefore left with the remains alone and it is unclear whether any attempt was made to establish who, where, and exactly when the remains were excavated. Neither is it known whether local organisations such as the Sussex Archaeological Society – now known as Sussex Past -was consulted in this regard, or whether it was assumed simply that no further records existed.
As such, at least some of the discussion in this article is based largely on assumptions about where the remains came from.
It is also important to note that Beachy Head Woman was one of only a small sample of burials which were viable for further analysis and craniofacial reconstruction.
This lack of organisation and investigation into the records of the collection would become critical when the Ancestors community archaeology project, a project undertaken with good intentions, commenced.
A further question around the project is that while certain other units were involved in the scientific analysis – including the Natural History Museum – it appears that no other archaeological units – commercial or university based – were involved in the project.
The question going begging is was this a matter of funding or were there other concerns?
Beachy Head Woman Revealed: Version 1
Within the Ancestors Project a small number of skulls were viable for craniofacial reconstruction – one of which was that of the Beachy Head Woman. It was at this point the possibility of Sub Saharan African origin was first suggested – based on osteometry.
There are what we might call general trends in the shape of the skulls of people with
particular ancestries and these have be analysed extensively over thousands of examples to create a base from which we can estimate a person’s likely heritage from the features of their bones, and particularly their skull.
These ranges however overlap a lot – and, as noted before, a number of factors can also influence this distinct from heritage or race.
The skulls were sent for reconstruction by a team which included Dr Caroline Wilkinson – who first suggested the skull fitted with the pattern found in people of Sub-Saharan African origin. This was used to create the reconstruction which drew the attention of national media, including the BBC.
Craniofacial reconstructions are always popular with the media – even if there are some questions over their usefulness outside of forensics cases where they can be key to identifying an unknown individual.
Black and British
The case of Beachy Head Woman came to broader attention as a result of the inclusion of the remains in the BBC series Black and British, and the accompanying book of the same title by David Olusoga. There are a number of key things to note here.
The first is that the DNA results which would first cast doubt of the possible origins of Beachy Head Woman had not been analysed at the time the series was produced, or when the first versions of the book appeared in print.
It is also worth noting that even in the earlier versions of the book the case of Beachy Head Woman is referred to primarily as another example to the main subject of section in question – the Ivory Bangle Lady from Roman York- whose origins are not disputed.
The series and book based its assertions on the osteometric findings established during the craniofacial reconstruction – and at the time, regardless of what we know now, this was the best evidence available in terms of identifying heritage.
In both cases coverage was minimal – and beyond establishing that the individual had spent most of their life in Sussex the results of the Stable Isotope Analysis were largely unmentioned.
This appearance would become problematic between 2017 and 2019 when stories would begin appearing which would claim that DNA analysis had proven that Beachy Head Woman was in fact entirely European, and from Cyprus.
Multiple stories in the press – notably the Telegraph, the Times, and the Daily Mail – would repeat assertions originally made in the Telegraph article – the only source for which appeared to be an article appearing on the website MuseumCrush which stated that DNA testing had proven Beachy Head Woman was from Cyprus.
The coverage of this story contained a catalogue of failures by the media in terms of fact checking, and these questions largely remain despite what we now know about Beachy Head Woman.
As outlined above – the Telegraph article misidentified the body doing the testing, wrongly involving the Francis Crick Institute, and made it appear that the findings were definitive .
This narrative was repeated by other media organisations verbatim.
It is worth noting that in the course of writing this article this narrative was debunked by a single e-mail to the Press Office at the Francis Crick Institute.
The media’s narrative appeared to be based solely on the Museum Crush article – which was authored by someone who at the time worked for Heritage Eastbourne. Heritage Eastbourne would later add an insert to the pamphlet on the Eastbourne Ancestors project stating that DNA evidence had shown Beachy Head Woman was likely from Cyprus – and the display at the Beachy Head Story which then housed her remains, was also updated to reflect this.
Heritage Eastbourne did not, as far as any available evidence shows, put out a press release regarding the updated findings – so it appears the only way they were put out there was via this single blogpost.
It is important also to note that at this point, as in 2024, when contacted the NHM stated the study was incomplete at this time.
Updated Findings: Version 1
As such the ‘official’ story had shifted. While the osteological analysis was still considered accurate, the interpretation of Sub-Saharan African heritage was no longer considered valid.
While it is possible to infer from the phrasing of various reports that the DNA findings which were reported in the blogpost had stated the person was like of Mediterranean origin and possibly from an island population this is not how it was reported by the media. Via ambiguous wording in various reports, this was changed online to a definitive proof of completely European origin.
These updated findings unleashed a firestorm of criticism against David Olusoga and the BBC for ‘changing history’, ‘woke archaeology’, and using much older terms ‘political correctness gone mad’.
The reality is however, that if we look at this from the perspective of historical, archaeological, or scientific enquiry, the assertions made in Black and British – both the series and the book – were valid at the time they were made. The later evidence – which as we shall discuss later – came about as a result of major improvements in aDNA analysis in the intervening time – does not mean that these early findings were deliberately made to fit a particular agenda.
It should be noted that the Stable Isotope Analysis could easily have been interpreted as meaning Beachy Head Woman was born in Britain, and spent her whole life here – fulfilling one definition of ‘being British’ – just not the ethnonationalist line taken by many people commentating on it.
It is also worth noting that the media reporting made no mention of this analysis – and it is not a huge leap in logic to assume that there was an agenda on the part of the media in how they reported the updated findings.
It is one way to account for the complete failure to fact check the story at the time it was published – the other being incompetence.
Furthermore it appears that these findings were not made explicit within Heritage Eastbourne at the time. We would learn more about this 2017 study when the new findings were published in 2025.
NEW ANSWERS
In 2025 a paper would be published in the Journal of Archaeological Science which aimed to clarify the origins of Beachy Head Woman, and answer the questions around her heritage. It is important to emphasize that amongst the earliest findings around Beachy Head Woman was the stable isotope analysis which determine that she had likely
spent her entire life in Sussex – these findings were not referred to in media in any of the reporting at the time. The new findings published in 2025 are consistent with this.
A close analysis of the data that was made publicly available after the initial Eastbourne Ancestors report could have concluded that while the osteoprofile was in an area of
overlap between European / British populations and those of African origin, the unique localisation of the Stable Isotope Analysis would strongly argue for the former – with the possibility of African heritage at some point not being completely ruled out. This would have been a valid conclusion to draw at the time.
The analysis of the DNA clearly shows that Beachy Head Woman was of British heritage and her genetic code fits that which is associated with Roman Britain. This also rules out the conclusion citing Hellenic elements (as was stated in the MuseumCrush article).
In terms of scientific analysis the case is closed. The osteoprofile, it seems, fell into an overlap between groups which led to a hypothesis which was taken as being more certain than it actually was – later testing demonstrated this was inaccurate, and we now know for certain that Beachy Head Woman’s DNA fits that of Northern Europe generally, and Roman Britain in particular.
One thing to note is that this paper takes the details given in the original report on Beachy Head Woman at face value and as accurate – without noting that there are several contradictions and inconsistencies within the published report.
For example, the report states the remains were assessed by several osteologists – however there was only one osteologist associated with the entire process, who was also the Project Manager, and whose academic publication history has primarily been focused on zooarchaeology and ichthyology, rather than in human osteology.
It is also important to note that a number of the contributing authors took part in both the original report, the subsequent blog post and updated DNA findings, and the most recent study.
The paper notes that the results of the 2017 analysis were reported in the media, but that the results themselves were not considered for publication. This is because the DNA sample used in 2017 was too degraded for conclusive analysis using the methods available.
The new analysis was only possible due to advances in aDNA analysis methods.
The question arises however why, given the results were being reported as definitively as they were (as by the Times and the Daily Mail) no effort was made to correct the record that the results were not as conclusive as they were being represented, or to publish the results themselves and open them to outside analysis?
The remains themselves are, for reasons discussed below, not available to be re-examined and are likely to remain so for the foreseeable feature. This means that any further study must necessarily rely on the published data.
The study highlights the advancements in bioarchaeology since the initial analysis, and the increasing reliance on aDNA analysis over osteometry, as the science continues to prove that the previous idea of race as a biological reality, rather than something constructed, invalid.
THE SAME QUESTIONS
The case of Beachy Head Woman raised a number of important questions about the relationship between archaeology and the media, and the role of local councils in heritage projects.
The first question relates to how the collection ended up in the situation it found itself in prior to the Eastbourne Ancestors project. The opening of the report states the remains were stored in the basement of the town hall along with other finds and artefacts. It is likely these came from the town’s old museum – which had also held the Towner
art collection (which has since been moved to a purpose built gallery) – and which had closed in the mid-2000s.
It is clear from the descriptions in the report that the collection does not appear to have been indexed at any point – not when it was acquired, and not when it was relocated to the basement.
This begs the question, how did the collection end up in this disorganised state and, if it did in fact originate from the old museum, why was it not indexed before being put into storage?
This lack of organisation would become critical when the Ancestors community archaeology project, a project undertaken with good intentions, commenced.
Secondly, while certain other units were involved in the scientific analysis – including the Natural History Museum – it appears that no other archaeological units – commercial or university based – were involved in the project. Was this a matter of funding or were there other concerns?
Thirdly, how did the case of the Beachy Head Woman come to be involved with the ‘Black and British’ series and associated book? Was this engagement through Heritage Eastbourne or was it because of links with the University of Dundee? (Notably, the Beachy Head Woman was one of only three or four skeletons for which craniofacial
reconstruction was viable)
Fourthly, how and when did the media get hold of the ‘updated’ findings, and what was the origin of the claim regarding the involvement of the Francis Crick Institute (which is not mentioned in the updated blogpost)? Why was this not fact checked – since it was relatively easy to establish it was in fact the Natural History Museum which
was undertaking the analysis?
Fifthly, why was it deemed important to publish these very early preliminary findings in this manner? This question has become more significant since the publication of the second set of updated findings in 2025 – since this peer reviewed report states the 2017 were based off incomplete sequencing and were therefore considered to be
inconclusive in terms of firmly establishing heritage beyond a possible Mediterranean origin?
Sixthly, why, when media reporting repeatedly cited the 2017 findings as being definitive, no effort was made to attempt to correct the record for the sake of sicnetific clarity? Was this simply to avoid further controversy, or was it due to the complexity of the original findings?
[Image copyright Dr Jude Seal]
The release of the 2025 findings drew some media coverage, including from the BBC and the Guardian, and particularly local news in Sussex. The main focus was again the craniofacial reconstruction, which has been updated both to reflect advances in the science and the updated DNA findings as regards Beachy Head Woman’s heritage.
The authors have stated that the updated findings do not change the story of Britain as a whole, but only the story of this specific individual – which is true and accurate. It is notable, however, that the update has received little coverage from the outlets which spread the 2017 report as definitive, when it was in fact inconclusive.
The conclusions of the 2025 study – which underline the continuing development of new methods in bioarchaeology and aDNA analysis and how these continue to refute the ‘biological essentialist’ idea of race (race being a biological characteristic) – are perfectly valid.
It is notable that this element has been less widely reported – perhaps because it does not fit with the same agreed which drove the earlier attacks on David Olusoga, and on archaeology in general.
FINAL THOUGHT – HERITAGE AT RISK [INCLUDING FROM MEDIA MISSTEPS]
The story of Beachy Head Woman that has played out in the media is one where cutting edge archaeological science has been misrepresented, misinterpreted, and conflated within the media – often, apparently, to suit the agendas of news websites. What has been lost in all the noise around her exact heritage is the truly touching human story of a woman who lived in the Roman period, who died relatively young, and who was laid to rest somewhere on the Sussex Downs. She had lived in these chalk hills, near the South Downs Way, her entire adult life, and likely much of her childhood.
We can estimate how she stood, how she walked, where she hurt. We know that she ate a diet drawn from the chalk hills and from the sea.
As a result of the updated findings we now know also what she looked like.
We can never know her name, or indeed, how she died – but we have an idea of this person, nearly two thousand years later.
It is a deeply human story, and sadly, underneath all the noise, it has become lost – mired in culture war narratives and apparently conflicting conclusions which were in reality not in conflict at all. And sadly, due to the increasing pressure on council budgets and under investment in heritage, her remains are now where they had been up until the beginning of the Eastbourne Ancestors project – held in a cardboard box, somewhere in a storage
facility, in virtual anonymity.
The media is increasingly ever more driven by what creates statistical engagement – ‘controversy creates cash’ has become ‘controversy creates clicks, and clicks create cash’. Any story which cannot be resolved around to two sides, or which is fundamentally more complicated – as so many stories in archaeology and heritage are – lies at risk to either being ignored, or potentially worse, over simplified into a binary issue or warped to fit a particular agenda.
For those of us who work in history, archaeology, and heritage, this case demonstrates the care we must take when presenting findings and projects to the media, and for those who work in media and for media consumers, it underlines the fundamental need to always check the facts behind the stories – lest another story end up a case study like this one in how misunderstood results, misinterpreted findings, and confused communications can snowball out of control.
Dr Jude Seal has PhD. from Royal Holloway, University of London and is a specialist in the History and Archaeology of Medicine, Disability, Disease, Trauma, Palæopathology and Religion.
Dr Seal writes the Archaeomedicus blog and posts on BlueSky as: Dr. Jude Seal – ‘Unfunded Hobbyist’.
Lead Image: The Beachy Head Woman exhibited as part of the Eastbourne Ancestors exhibition mounted by Heritage Eastbourne.
[Copyright Dr Jude Seal]
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