Journalists have misconstrued the actual research regarding the remains found in London. Perhaps that is no fault of their own in failing to understand the archaeological and technical jargon within the paper itself. Or perhaps they did it on purpose to drum up sensation to increase ad revenue. Who knows?

But it is important to note what the research was trying to accomplish and that was a mix of stable isotope analysis combined with skeletal morphology to see if there was a possible relationship between the two. Skull morphology to determine race, though, is not well supported in academia. While it can sometimes point towards race, it should be used in conjunction with other lines of evidence. The reason is that, like DNA, there is more variation in morphology within a population as there is between populations. So when you're trying to compare skulls to race it becomes extremely difficult when someone who is phenotypically white appears to have the skull of someone who is phenotypically black or vice versa. Race is, ultimately, a social construct and trying to pinpoint race scientifically has not really been successful. Some would argue genetics can point towards race, but I would argue that instead they are confusing a population with race.

Another issue is the sample in which the researchers are drawing from in London. Many of the samples the researchers were testing were fragmented with only 41% of the sample being testable. It doesn't instill much confidence in the findings.

The researchers themselves say, "the population affiliation divisions used here may disguise or fail to find many affiliations because they are subjective, and morphology varies between individuals and over time". This relates to the difficulty of trying to understand and map the changes in morphology that has occurred over the past 2000 years. Without understanding what changes, if any, took place it is hard to say whether the morphology was typical of the time or a false positive based on comparisons to contemporary samples.

Lastly, their method lacked an adequate comparison to North African and southern Mediterranean populations. These populations have much more genetic diversity, and thus skull morphology, than sub-Saharan or northern European populations. Having a comparison to these populations may show that the individuals who might be Asian are in fact much more local to the Mediterranean region.

What the researchers need to prove that these individuals are Asian is for a DNA test. And if the remains are too fragmented and not preserved well enough, that may prove to be difficult.