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Bones reveal a classy Roman diet

By Kate Ravilious

THE feast had exceeded all expectations. Fresh oysters to start, hot roasted dormice to nibble on, and then the gigantic wild boar on a spit that had lasted well into the night. Centurion Lucius' s daughter' s wedding had been a night to remember.

Fulvia, one of Lucius' s many slaves, surveyed the carnage of the night before and wearily set about beginning the task of clearing up. As she picked up the scattered oyster shells she wondered what these fruits of the sea tasted like, not something she was every likely to try in her lifetime.

But was it really like this in Roman times? Did the slaves eat very different foods to their masters and did the Romans eat much seafood? Dr Mike Richards from Oxford University is beginning to answer these questions by using a technique that analyses the chemistry of bone.

Our bones are built from proteins in the food we eat. Various types of proteins have different carbon and nitrogen isotope ratios. (Isotopes are types of the same element that have different weights, a bit like oranges with differing numbers of pips.) The isotope ratios are preserved as a readable signature in our bones.

For example, if you enjoy eating lots of seafood, your bones will have a different carbon isotope ratio to someone who never eats seafood. Similarly if you are vegetarian but your friend eats meat, you will have very different nitrogen isotope ratios.

By measuring carbon and nitrogen ratios in the bones of people from ancient civilisations it is possible to see what proportions of seafood, meat and plants they ate.

"Since it takes a long time for bone to grow, the measurements reflect the average protein intake over the last 10 years of that person' s life," explains Dr Richards.

He has applied this technique to study the diets of people from Roman times. Around 50 bone samples were collected from people buried in an ancient cemetery near Dorchester, in Dorset. During the third century AD the area had a thriving Roman town called Durnovaria.

Dr Richards looked at two different time periods. The oldest samples were from people living around the first century AD in the late Iron Age/Early Roman period.

"Generally these people were buried without coffins but they sometimes had a few possessions buried alongside them, such as pottery, coins and copper jewellery," says Dr Richards. The younger samples were from the Late Roman period, around the fourth century AD. These people had more sophisticated burials. Most of the graves were lined up west-east and the people were usually buried in a wooden coffin. There were also large tombs in the graveyard where the people of highest social standing were buried. They usually had stone or lead-lined coffins and were buried with precious possessions such as gold threads, bone combs and copper rings.

Dr Richards' results revealed some interesting differences in diet. Iron Age and Early Roman People ate mostly animals and plants. There was very little difference in diet from person to person.

LATE Roman burials tell a very different story. People buried in tombs and lead-lined coffins had ratios of carbon and nitrogen that were quite unlike those of the people buried in the wooden coffins. The values indicate that the richer people regularly ate seafood, while ordinary people had rarely, if ever, eaten seafood.

"It really does seem that an elite class of people existed in Late Roman times," says Dr Richards. "They kept themselves distinct from the majority of people by eating different foods and in death they were treated with respect and buried separately in special tombs."

So poor old Fulvia was indeed destined for a life without oysters.

One more interesting result emerged from Dr Richards' s study. Two of the people from the Late Roman period had unusually high carbon ratios. "These people had probably recently immigrated to the area from a place with a warmer climate, such as Spain or Greece," explains Dr Richards.

His reasoning is that carbon is absorbed differently by plants in a warmer climate compared with those in a colder climate. This difference is maintained throughout the food chain and is seen in the bone analysis.

The results of the bone investigation from this cemetery show what an exciting tool stable element analysis can be.

There is potential for looking at many other ancient cultures and seeing if diet has always been connected to social status. In addition, it may be possible to see when invasions occurred and different cultures mixed. Little did Caesar think we could trace his tracks by what he ate.