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Stable isotopes and diet: their contribution to Romano-British research

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Gundula Müldner
Gundula Müldner*
Affiliation:
*Department of Archaeology, University of Reading, Whiteknights, PO Box 227, Reading RG6 6AB, UK (Email: [email protected])
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Abstract

The study of stable isotopes surviving in human bone is fast becoming a standard response in the analysis of cemeteries. Reviewing the state of the art for Roman Britain, the author shows clear indications of a change in diet (for the better) following the Romanisation of Iron Age Britain—including more seafood, and more nutritional variety in the towns. While samples from the bones report an average of diet over the years leading up to an individual's death, carbon and nitrogen isotope signatures taken from the teeth may have a biographical element—capturing those childhood dinners. In this way migrants have been detected—as in the likely presence of Africans in Roman York. While not unexpected, these results show the increasing power of stable isotopes to comment on populations subject to demographic pressures of every kind.

Keywords

Roman Britainisotope analysiscarbonnitrogendietculture change
Type
Research Article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 87 , Issue 335 , March 2013 , pp. 137 - 149
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 2013

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