Butchered? Or merely builders?

 According to the TV and newspapers in Britain this week the objects of attention here are two of eighty skeletons of ancient British gladiators, victims of wild beasts, swords and axes, once upon a time butchered in York to make a Roman holiday and featured two thousand years later to entertain us once again.

At the TLS we remain a little sceptical. Maybe these men did die before a baying crowd in a provincial Colosseum. Or perhaps they were among the more numerous animal hunters or...