East of Rome: Exploring potential impacts of Roman imperialism on Northeastern Mediterranean populations through a bioarchaeological perspective

Abstract

The sociopolitical and biocultural impacts of Roman imperialism on eastern provincial and peripheral populations have been underexamined in archaeological and bioarchaeological research. While many western territories experienced arguably dramatic changes to local infrastructure and culture, eastern provinces were incorporated into the Empire with some modifications to, but general continuation of, political and societal organization. However, provincial governance varied across the Northeastern Mediterranean, with populations falling under senatorial or imperial jurisdiction. Drawing from published bioarchaeological data from 19 archaeological sites in Crete, Cyprus, Greece, and Turkey, this exploratory study examines skeletal and dento-alveolar proxies of stress, diet, and disease in light of a community’s political (senatorial or imperial province) and geographical (coastal or inland) positioning to evaluate impacts of Roman imperial rule. True (TPR) and crude (CPR) prevalence rates from childhood (linear enamel defects) and adult (antemortem fractures) stress markers, dietary proxies (carious lesions, calculus, and tooth loss), and specific (periodontal disease) and non-specific (periosteal new bone) bone lesions were compared within political (senatorial/imperial) and geographical (inland/coastal) groups. Results from Mann-Whitney U tests showed no significant differences in conditions between senatorial and imperial sites. Higher frequencies of pathological conditions were observed in inland than coastal communities but significant, or approaching significant, differences were only found in calculus distributions. These preliminary results suggest that communities in senatorial and imperial provinces did not experience prescriptive levels of stress based on governance. Rather, the heterogeneity in stress, diet, and disease proxies demonstrates how communities in the Northeastern Mediterranean were impacted differentially by Roman imperialism.