Just a few days ago, only the second isotope study of millet consumption in the Roman Empire was published, by Pollard and colleagues in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology. In a small Romano-British cemetery in Kent (late 3rd-early 4th century AD), a salvage archaeology project uncovered a dozen burials that were simple in nature: only coffin nails and hobnails from boots were found in most graves. Among these simple farmers, though, was an individual with a surprisingly high carbon isotope value, so Pollard and colleagues undertook a dietary (C/N) and migration (Sr/O) study of the individuals.
|Figure 3 from Pollard et al. showing the anomalous individual (SK12671)|
compared with other Romano-British sites and the two anomalous individuals
published in Muldner et al. 2011.
|Figure 4 from Pollard et al. 2011 comparing Romano-British|
samples with Bronze Age north Italian samples
|From Killgrove & Tykot, n.d.|
Killgrove, K. (2010). Migration and mobility in Imperial Rome. PhD dissertation, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. [PDF]
Killgrove, K. & Tykot, R. (n.d.) Investigating the diets of the lower classes in Imperial Rome through carbon and nitrogen isotope analyses. Manuscript in submission.
Muldner, G, Chenery, C, & Eckardt, H (2011). The "headless Romans": multi-isotope investigations of an unusual burial ground from Roman Britain Journal of Archaeological Science, 38, 280-290
Pollard AM, Ditchfield P, McCullagh JS, Allen TG, Gibson M, Boston C, Clough S, Marquez-Grant N, & Nicholson RA (2011). "These boots were made for walking": The isotopic analysis of a C4 Roman inhumation from Gravesend, Kent, UK. American Journal of Physical Anthropology PMID: 21959970
Prowse TL, Schwarcz HP, Garnsey P, Knyf M, Macchiarelli R, & Bondioli L (2007). Isotopic evidence for age-related immigration to imperial Rome. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 132 (4), 510-9 PMID: 17205550
Tafuri MA, Craig OE, & Canci A (2009). Stable isotope evidence for the consumption of millet and other plants in Bronze Age Italy. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 139 (2), 146-53 PMID: 19051259