Lion bites on skeleton provide first evidence of gladiator’s combat with wild beasts

A Roman gladiator’s skeleton has provided the first piece of physical evidence of combat between a human and a large cat, archaeologists said.

The skeleton, likely of a man who died between the ages of 26 and 35, shows bite marks on the pelvis from a big cat, which could have been a lion, archaeologists said in a new study published in the journal PLOS ONE.