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London Archaeologists Use Fingerprints to Study Roman Pottery

Archaeologists from the Museum of London recently enlisted the help of a fingerprint expert from the Northhamptonshire (UK) Police Fingerprints Bureau to try to determine if a recently discovered group of pottery was made by one or multiple workers in a 1st century AD workshop.

According to a report on the BBC, this is thought to be the first time modern criminal fingerprinting techniques have been applied to ancient Roman pottery shards.

The result? Nothing definitive, unfortunately. Apparently trying to pinpoint 2,000 year old potters is a bit trickier than fingering current day scoundrels. After surveying nine different pottery samples, the detective was unable to pinpoint any two as coming from the same hand although he concluded that there was a favorable probability of at least one match from the group.

For the story, click http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/northamptonshire/3045753.stm