Abstract
Cereals were a significant part of the Roman diet, yet knowledge about their cultivation, distribution and consumption in certain regions is particularly lacking. In Europe, studies generally suggest that from the Iron Age to the Roman period there was a reduction in barley cultivation, an increase in spelt over emmer, a preference for free-threshing wheat over glume wheats, as well as the increased cultivation of rye and oats. Up till now, there was little evidence on crop cultivation in Croatia, but the discovery of around 24,000 cereal grains from the oven of a 2nd-4th c. ad Roman villa in the modern town of Osijek provides important insights into diet and subsistence in the Roman province of Pannonia. Here, the dominance of free-threshing wheat, spelt and rye with only a relatively small amount of other cereals, chaff and weeds corresponds well with this pattern seen elsewhere in Europe. The relatively clean grain deposit suggests that this sample represents processed grain ready for final food preparation and consumption at the villa. The morphological variation and overlap seen between the carbonised spelt and free-threshing wheat grains, as well as the identification of ‘stunted’ cereal grains, is also discussed.
Highlights
Cereal grain was a significant part of the Roman diet, but which cereals were grown and consumed depended on a number of variables, including geographical location, culture, class, economy and technology
This study focuses on the recovery of 24,000 grains, mostly of T. aestivum/durum, T. spelta and Secale, from the oven of a Roman villa in the town of Osijek, Croatia
The well preserved archaeobotanical sample collected from the villa oven at Osijek-Silos is the largest deposit of cereal grains recovered from the Roman period in Croatia
Summary
Cereal grain was a significant part of the Roman diet, but which cereals were grown and consumed depended on a number of variables, including geographical location (climate), culture, class, economy and technology. The suitability of each crop to produce a certain food such as bread, porridge etc., its price, and whether its secondary products were useful in the local economy, such as chaff as temper for mud bricks, would have determined its cultivation within a particular region. This is supported by the Communicated by S.M. Valamoti. (oats) and Secale cereale (rye) are all found at Roman sites such as Pompeii and Herculaneum (for example, Meyer 1980; Murphy et al 2013). Pulses, such as Vicia faba (broad bean), Cicer arietinum (chickpea), Lens culinaris (lentil) and Pisum sativum (pea),
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