"I really think we are descended from the Romans," said Song Guorong, 48, who with his wavy hair, 1.8-metre frame and strikingly long, hooked nose stands out from his short, round-faced colleagues. Studies claiming Liqian has Roman ancestry have greatly excited the impoverished county in which it is situated. The village is now overlooked by a pillared portico, in the hope of attracting tourists.

The town's link with Rome was first suggested by a professor of Chinese history at Oxford in the 1950s. Homer Dubs pulled together stories from the official histories, which said Liqian was founded by soldiers captured in a war between the Chinese and the Huns in 36BC, and the legend of the missing army of Marcus Crassus, a Roman general. In 53BC Crassus was defeated by the Parthians, an empire occupying what is now Iran, putting an end to Rome's eastward expansion. But stories persisted that 145 Romans were taken captive and wandered the region for years. Professor Dubs theorised that they made their way eastwards as a mercenary troop, which was how a troop "with a fish-scale formation" came to be captured by the Chinese 17 years later.

He said the "fish-scale formation" was a reference to the Roman "tortoise", a phalanx protected by shields on all sides and from above. Gu Jianming, who lives near Liqian, said he was surprised to be told he might be descended from a European imperial army. But the birth of his daughter was also a surprise. Gu Meina, now six, was born with a shock of blonde hair.

"We shaved it off a month after she was born, but it just grew back the same colour," he said. "At school they call her 'yellow hair'. Before we were told about the Romans, we had no idea about this. We are poor and have no family temple, so we don't know about our ancestors." The hypothesis took almost 40 years to reach China. During Chairman Mao's rule, ideas of foreign ancestry were not welcome and the story was suppressed. The blood tests are part of a project by scientists and historians after local authorities loosened control over genetic research. The results will be published in a scientific journal. But Professor Xie Xiaodong, a geneticist from Lanzhou University, cautioned against over-enthusiasm.

"Even if they are descendants of the Roman empire, it doesn't mean they are necessarily from the Roman army," he said. "The empire covered a large area … so anything is possible." The issue has split the university's history department. Professor Wang Shaokuan said that the Huns themselves included Caucasians, Asians and Mongols.

Telegraph, London