Shackled skeleton identified as rare evidence of slavery in Roman Britain

[Chainfire]

4. Hang on a minute; how could they differentiate a "slave" from a criminal?

While I certainly believe that the Romans used slave labor in their works in G.B., why assume that this individual was a slave?

Perhaps the young man was a mass murderer, who is to say that he was not an insolent soldier? A slave, cobbled up like that, would have been useless for work. which is generally the purpose of slavery. I would also wonder why the expensive shackles would not have been retrieved.