Naglaa Abu-Mandil Hassan, Keri A. Brown, Jill Eyers, Terence A. Brown and Simon Mays:
As noted above, infanticide was identified at the Roman Ashkelon brothel site where remains of nearly 100 perinatal infants were found (Smith and Kahila, 1992). There, aDNA analyses identified an excess of male infants, the suggestion being that prostitutes selectively reared girls to join the trade, with the mostly male remainder being discarded (Faerman et al., 1998). A finding of an excess of males among the Yewden infant burials would be contrary to a general preference for male offspring in the Roman World, but would potentially be consistent with the brothel theory.