What is the purpose of the Role attribute in HTML?

Lately I have seen several instances where a role attribute is included in the HTML.
These are some examples:

<header class="navbar navbar-fixed-top" role="banner">
</header>

and

<ul class="dropdown-menu" role="menu">
  <li><a href="/">Home</a></li>
  <li><a href="/products">Products</a></li>
  <li><a href="/services">Services</a></li>
</ul>

Is this a valid HTML construct?
If so, what is it used for? From the examples it seems to have a semantic meaning.

Thanks.

Sean Healy, Aug 10, 2013

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