The Romans may have given us impressive roads, plumbing and an entirely new calendar, but it was always thought that when they left Britain they took their DNA with them.

Previous studies have shown that the legionnaires left little genetic legacy before returning to defend the Roman Empire from marauding barbarians in the 5th century.

But new research could be about to prove otherwise.

A recent study by Harvard University found a strange genetic disparity emerged in south-east England around the Iron Age and Roman Period.

At that time most Britons were descended from The Beaker People, a group of farmers who migrated from the central Europe around 2750BC, and who replaced 90 per cent of Britain’s gene pool within just a few hundred years.

Yet new studies of ancient skeletons showed that people in the south-east were getting their DNA from elsewhere, and now researchers at Harvard are trying to find out from whom.