Issued on: 25/08/2021 -
Washington (AFP)
A team of archeologists examining the remains of victims from the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD have discovered coastal people of the time ate far more fish than modern Italians, with men getting more of the high-status food than women.
The researchers, led by a team at the University of York, analyzed amino acids -- the building blocks of proteins -- in 17 adult skeletons excavated from the city of Herculaneum, a popular seaside resort that remained buried under volcanic ash until the 18th century.
By studying the ratio of carbon and nitrogen isotopes of the amino acids and applying a statistical model, they were able to differentiate between food groups with a new level of precision, the team wrote in the journal Science Advances on Wednesday.
Lead author and PhD student Silvia Soncin told AFP that Herculaneum provided an "extraordinary population" to study historic diets because the natural disaster gives archeologists a snapshot in time.
"Cemeteries are usually used over a certain period, we're talking about hundreds of years, and the food sources may have changed because of changing climate or different trade routes," she said.
Though Herculaneum and nearby Pompeii were destroyed by the volcano, most inhabitants managed to escape in time, senior author Oliver Craig, a professor of bioarcheology told AFP.
The 11 men and six women studied by the team were picked at random from 340 people who died on the beach and from nine adjacent fornici -- stone chambers for boats -- where they had sought shelter from the pyroclastic flow.
"We found a surprisingly high amount of marine contribution to the diet of these people, particularly compared to the modern Mediterranean population," said Soncin, with the ancient dwellers eating about three times the amount of seafood compared to their counterparts today.
Herculaneum's sewers were filled with fish bones, prior research has shown. Typical species would have included porgies, tuna and shellfish.
- Gender gap -
They also discovered a significant sex gap within the group, with males on average getting 50 percent more of their protein from seafood compared to females.
Men also got slightly more protein from cereals compared with their female contemporaries, while women obtained more of their proteins from animal products and locally grown fruits and vegetables.
The team put forward several possible reasons: men may have been more involved in fishing than women, but the historical record also shows that certain fish such as tuna were considered high-status food in Roman society, with men having more access.
Another aspect is that, although Herculaneum was known as a resort for the elite, it was also home to many slaves and freedmen, said Craig.
Male slaves had a higher chance of emancipation than women and were generally freed at an earlier age, giving them more access to coveted foods.
"Now we've got a way and approach for actually quantifying diet in the past, so what we want to do is apply this more widely through time and space," said Craig.
He hopes to next examine how quickly diets shifted when prehistoric humans moved from hunter-gathering activities to agricultural societies.
© 2021 AFP
New research shows men and women of Roman Herculaneum had different diets
IMAGE: ARCHAEOLOGISTS EXAMINED SKELETAL REMAINS view more
CREDIT: DR LUCIANO FATTORE
Researchers - led by the University of York’s BioArCh team - developed a new approach to analyse amino acids, the building blocks of proteins, from 17 adult skeletons found in the aftermath of the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD.
By measuring the isotopes of carbon and nitrogen in the bone amino acids, the researchers were able to reconstruct the diets of people who lived contemporaneously in much more detail than was previously thought possible.
Senior author, Professor Oliver Craig, the Director of BioArCH from the Department of Archaeology said: “The remains of those who perished at Herculaneum in AD79 offer a unique opportunity to examine the lifestyles across an ancient community who lived and died together. Historical sources often allude to differential access to foodstuffs across Roman society but rarely provide direct or quantitative information.
“We found significant differences in the proportions of marine and terrestrial foods consumed between males and females, implying that access to food was differentiated according to gender.”
In total, 340 individuals have been excavated from the beach and from nine adjacent fornici (stone vaults) that run parallel to the seashore in Herculaneum, near Pompeii, where people sought shelter from the pyroclastic flow.
Researchers said they were able to quantify the gender gap more accurately within the group, with males on average obtaining approximately 50 per cent more more of their dietary protein from seafood compared with females.
Males also obtained a slightly higher proportion of protein from cereals compared with their female contemporaries, whereas females obtained a greater proportion of protein from animal products and locally grown fruits and vegetables.
Lead author, PhD student Silvia Soncin, from the Department of Archaeology, said: “Our research builds on what we know that males had greater access to marine fish at Herculaneum and more broadly in Roman Italy.
“Males were more likely to be directly engaged in fishing and maritime activities, they generally occupied more privileged positions in society, and were freed from slavery at an earlier age providing greater access to expensive commodities, such as fresh fish.
Using their new approach, the researchers were able to more accurately quantify ancient diets so they could be compared with recent nutritional records. The team suggests that fish and seafood made a greater overall contribution to the diets at Herculaneum compared to the average modern Mediterranean diet; the latter increasingly dominated by animal products. Whereas a similar proportion of cereals were consumed between ancient and modern.
The research was conducted in partnership with Rome’s “Museo delle Civiltà ” and the Archaeological Parks of Pompeii and Herculaneum, amongst others.
The paper, “High-resolution dietary reconstruction of victims of the AD79 Vesuvius eruption at Herculaneum by compound specific isotope analysis” is published in Science Advances.
JOURNAL
Science Advances
SUBJECT OF RESEARCH
People
ARTICLE TITLE
High-resolution dietary reconstruction of victims of the AD79 Vesuvius eruption at Herculaneum by compound specific isotope analysis
ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE
24-Aug-2021
COI STATEMENT
None
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