Bioarchaeological perspectives to diachronic life quality and mobility in ancient Boeotia, central Greece: Preliminary insights from Akraiphia

Abstract

AbstractThe current paper examines issues of diachronic life quality and mobility in Boeotia, central Greece. Boeotia is a region with a tumultuous history as its strategic location facilitated its active involvement in major socio‐political events, such as the Peloponnesian war, the Third Sacred War, Roman invasions, and civil conflicts, to list just a few. The bioarchaeological study of 293 skeletons from the Akraiphia cemetery aimed at testing whether the Hellenistic period and early Roman era were more stressful than preceding time periods, as attested by historical evidence, as well as whether the Roman era was characterised by increased human mobility, as expected on the basis of isotopic studies from other parts of the Roman Empire. The combination of palaeopathological lesions, nonspecific stress markers, and dental wear supported increased hardship for the Akraiphia population during the Hellenistic, Roman, and post‐Roman periods, as well as similar living conditions for men and women diachronically. Finally, biodistances calculated on the basis of dental nonmetric traits suggested a phenetic divergence between the Hellenistic period and the Roman era, likely linked with increased human mobility within the Roman Empire.