Bioarchaeological perspectives to mobility in Roman Phoenicia: A biodistance study based on dental morphology

Abstract

Given their geographic location and political stability, Tyre, Beirut, and Byblos were major administrative and commercial centers along the Levantine coast during the Roman period. While archaeological research from Byblos suggests that the city prospered under Roman rule, it was mostly overshadowed by its coastal neighbors, Beirut and Tyre. In this paper we analyze the biodistances within and between three contemporary (1st–4th century AD) human skeletal assemblages from Byblos, Beirut, and Tyre. Dental measurements and nonmetric traits were recorded on 97 individuals. Both individual- and group-level analyses were performed; the individual-level analysis was based on PERMANOVA/PERMDISP using Gower distances, whereas the group-level analysis was based both on Gower distances and a Mahalanobis-type distance for mixed continuous and binary data. The results showed that Tyre and Beirut were more heterogeneous, that is, they exhibited higher intra-assemblage distances; this pattern was more prominent in Tyre. The inter-assemblage biodistances supported a relative proximity between Tyre and Beirut, followed by some affinity between Beirut and Byblos. In contrast, Tyre and Byblos were very divergent. The historical sources and literary texts support the idea that Beirut and Tyre, as key Roman colonies and commercial hubs in the Eastern Mediterranean, had high levels of mobility when compared to other coastal cities such as Byblos. Although more research is required, the integration of biodistance data with historical narratives has wide-reaching implications, especially in regions of the Eastern Mediterranean where human bioarchaeological research is actively developing.