"Gladiator" Graveyard found in York?

[Cleopatra Aelia]

Here are a few articles dealing with cemetary dating from Roman time which they are digging out at York (Roman Eburacum) at the moment:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/ ... -graveyard
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/scien ... 93282.html
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/u ... 145204.ece
http://www.yorkpress.co.uk/news/8204794 ... rial_site/
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-storie ... -22315724/
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ ... -York.html

When reading this it seems to me that either they are talking about venatores (beast fighters) or noxi (condemned criminals). To me it sounds unlikely that a gladiator has a well trained right (sword) arm because as I can tell from my own experience a gladiator needs also a well trained left (shield) arm. To me this sounds more like a laborer of monotonous work such as a smith or any other craftsman etc. or a field worker.

Decapitation and hammer blows also point towards noxi because gladiators acc. to Junkelmann did not receive the hammer blow but only the noxi. Scars of animal bites of large carnivores point towards venatores or also noxi. Burial objects point to venatores as it would be unlikely that condemned criminals would receive a proper funeral.

That's why I put the word gladiator in quotation marks because I think it sounds more interesting, more lavish to the wide public to write gladiator instead of beast fighter.