̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - bioarchaeology

Face of Anglo-Saxon teen VIP revealed with new evidence about her life

ta385 — Tue, 20 Jun 2023 05:00:00 +0000

̽��ֱ��face of a 16-year-old woman buried near Cambridge in the 7th century with the ‘Trumpington Cross’ has been reconstructed following analysis of her skull. ̽��ֱ��striking image is going on display at MAA, with new scientific evidence showing that she moved to England from Central Europe as a young girl, leading to an intriguing change in her diet.

Anglo-Saxon kings were mostly veggie but peasants treated them to huge BBQs

ta385 — Thu, 21 Apr 2022 13:00:00 +0000

Very few people in England ate large amounts of meat before the Vikings settled, and there is no evidence that elites ate more meat than other people, a major new bioarchaeological study suggests. But its sister study also argues that peasants occasionally hosted lavish meat feasts for their rulers. Their findings overturn major assumptions about early medieval English history.

Medieval ‘birthing girdle’ parchment was worn during labour, study suggests

fpjl2 — Wed, 10 Mar 2021 11:59:56 +0000

Researchers have found direct evidence that a 500-year-old manuscript was worn during childbirth by using 'biomolecular analysis' to detect ancient proteins from cervico-vaginal fluid within the weave of the parchment.

̽��ֱ��medieval 'birthing girdle', now part of the Wellcome Collection, dates from around 1500, and is a rare example of the kind of talisman or relic that was offered to anxious pregnant women by the Pre-Reformation English Church.

Childbearing in medieval Europe was perilous, with risks ranging from uterine prolapse to postpartum infection. Complications during or resulting from labour caused a high death toll among women: neonatal mortality rates of the time for mother and child together are estimated to have been 30 to 60 percent.

Made from materials such as silk, paper and parchment, and inscribed with prayers and invocations for safe delivery, birthing girdles were one of the most common spiritual charms loaned out by monasteries to their parishioners.

Talismanic items such as girdles, designed to secure assistance from divine and supernatural forces, were targeted for destruction during the Dissolution of the Monasteries, which began in 1536 under King Henry VIII. The stained, three-metre-long sheepskin scroll now held by Wellcome (MS.632) is one of the few birthing girdles that survived.

Despite a ban on girdles by bishops in the wake of the Reformation, women were known to have used them surreptitiously up until the early 17th century, and this may have been one of the clandestine birthing girdles that remained in circulation.

A research team led by Dr Sarah Fiddyment of the McDonald Institute of Archaeological Research at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge used erasers to delicately rub the fragile parchment and collect tiny crumbs of material without damaging the artefact. They then analysed and extracted proteins from these granules.

̽��ֱ��proteomic analysis used by Fiddyment and colleagues, a non-invasive sampling technique called eZooms, was originally developed to identify the animal species from which ancient parchments were made. Their findings have been published in the journal Royal Society Open Science.

Along with a large number of proteins matching cervico-vaginal fluid, indicating that the manuscript was indeed actively worn during labour, the researchers also found various non-human proteins: honey, milk, egg and plants such as broad beans – all of which have been documented in medieval texts as treatments relating to pregnancy and childbirth.

“Although these birth girdles are thought to have been used during pregnancy and childbirth, there has been no direct evidence that they were actually worn until now,” said Fiddyment, lead author of the new study.

“Many contain prayers for general protection of the individual, but this particular girdle also contains very specific prayers to protect women in childbirth and references various saints also related to women and childbirth.”

“This girdle is especially interesting as it has visual evidence of having been used and worn, as some of the images and writing have been worn away through use and it has many stains and blemishes,” Fiddyment said.

Alongside names of apostles and saints associated with childbirth, such as the Saints Julitta and Quiricus, mother and son martyrs, the manuscript also features the assurance that 'yf a woman travell wyth chylde gyrdes thys mesure abowte hyr wombe and she shall be delyvyrs wythowte parelle.' ('If a woman travailing with child girds this measure about her womb, she shall be delivered safely without peril.')

̽��ֱ��manuscript's 'severe abrasions' imply that it was often touched or kissed as well as worn, write the researchers. They say that the narrow width of the scroll and the traces of folds suggest it was wrapped around a woman’s body so that particular prayers were strategically placed against the womb.

“We do not know how the girdles were worn, but there are suggestions that due to the dimensions of the object – long and narrow – they were worn like a chastity belt, to help support the pregnant women both physically and spiritually,” said Fiddyment.

̽��ֱ��study’s senior author, Professor Matthew Collins, also of the McDonald Institute, said the research highlights the role of proteomics within a new field called 'biocodicology': the study of the biological information stored in ancient manuscripts.

Scientists have used emerging proteomic techniques to find traces of ancient vaginal fluid, honey and milk on a rare manuscript from the late 15th century.

There are suggestions that due to the dimensions of the object – long and narrow – they were worn like a chastity belt

Sarah Fiddyment

Image courtesy of Wellcome Collection

Medieval English Birth Scroll. MS.632 (c. 1500), Wellcome Collection

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

Yes

Prehistoric women’s manual work was tougher than rowing in today’s elite boat crews

fpjl2 — Wed, 29 Nov 2017 19:01:03 +0000

A new study comparing the bones of Central European women that lived during the first 6,000 years of farming with those of modern athletes has shown that the average prehistoric agricultural woman had stronger upper arms than living female rowing champions.

Researchers from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge’s Department of Archaeology say this physical prowess was likely obtained through tilling soil and harvesting crops by hand, as well as the grinding of grain for as much as five hours a day to make flour.

Until now, bioarchaeological investigations of past behaviour have interpreted women’s bones solely through direct comparison to those of men. However, male bones respond to strain in a more visibly dramatic way than female bones.

̽��ֱ��Cambridge scientists say this has resulted in the systematic underestimation of the nature and scale of the physical demands borne by women in prehistory.

“This is the first study to actually compare prehistoric female bones to those of living women,” said Dr Alison Macintosh, lead author of the study published today in the journal Science Advances.

“By interpreting women’s bones in a female-specific context we can start to see how intensive, variable and laborious their behaviours were, hinting at a hidden history of women’s work over thousands of years.”

̽��ֱ��study, part of the European Research Council-funded ADaPt (Adaption, Dispersals and Phenotype) Project, used a small CT scanner in Cambridge’s PAVE laboratory to analyse the arm (humerus) and leg (tibia) bones of living women who engage in a range of physical activity: from runners, rowers and footballers to those with more sedentary lifestyles.

̽��ֱ��bones strengths of modern women were compared to those of women from early Neolithic agricultural eras through to farming communities of the Middle Ages.

“It can be easy to forget that bone is a living tissue, one that responds to the rigours we put our bodies through. Physical impact and muscle activity both put strain on bone, called loading. ̽��ֱ��bone reacts by changing in shape, curvature, thickness and density over time to accommodate repeated strain,” said Macintosh.

“By analysing the bone characteristics of living people whose regular physical exertion is known, and comparing them to the characteristics of ancient bones, we can start to interpret the kinds of labour our ancestors were performing in prehistory.”

Over three weeks during trial season, Macintosh scanned the limb bones of the Open- and Lightweight squads of the Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Women’s Boat Club, who ended up winning this year’s Boat Race and breaking the course record. These women, most in their early twenties, were training twice a day and rowing an average of 120km a week at the time.

̽��ֱ��Neolithic women analysed in the study (from 7400-7000 years ago) had similar leg bone strength to modern rowers, but their arm bones were 11-16% stronger for their size than the rowers, and almost 30% stronger than typical Cambridge students.

̽��ֱ��loading of the upper limbs was even more dominant in the study’s Bronze Age women (from 4300-3500 years ago), who had 9-13% stronger arm bones than the rowers but 12% weaker leg bones.

A possible explanation for this fierce arm strength is the grinding of grain. “We can’t say specifically what behaviours were causing the bone loading we found. However, a major activity in early agriculture was converting grain into flour, and this was likely performed by women,” said Macintosh.

“For millennia, grain would have been ground by hand between two large stones called a saddle quern. In the few remaining societies that still use saddle querns, women grind grain for up to five hours a day.

“ ̽��ֱ��repetitive arm action of grinding these stones together for hours may have loaded women's arm bones in a similar way to the laborious back-and-forth motion of rowing.”

However, Macintosh suspects that women’s labour was hardly likely to have been limited to this one behaviour.

“Prior to the invention of the plough, subsistence farming involved manually planting, tilling and harvesting all crops,” said Macintosh. “Women were also likely to have been fetching food and water for domestic livestock, processing milk and meat, and converting hides and wool into textiles.

“ ̽��ֱ��variation in bone loading found in prehistoric women suggests that a wide range of behaviours were occurring during early agriculture. In fact, we believe it may be the wide variety of women’s work that in part makes it so difficult to identify signatures of any one specific behaviour from their bones.”

Dr Jay Stock, senior study author and head of the ADaPt Project, added: “Our findings suggest that for thousands of years, the rigorous manual labour of women was a crucial driver of early farming economies. ̽��ֱ��research demonstrates what we can learn about the human past through better understanding of human variation today.”

̽��ֱ��first study to compare ancient and living female bones shows that women from early agricultural eras had stronger arms than the rowers of Cambridge ̽��ֱ��’s famously competitive boat club. Researchers say the findings suggest a “hidden history” of gruelling manual labour performed by women that stretched across millennia.

By interpreting women’s bones in a female-specific context we can start to see how intensive, variable and laborious their behaviours were

Alison Macintosh

Prehistoric women’s manual work was tougher than rowing in today’s elite boat crews

Alastair Fyfe for the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge

Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Women’s Boat Club Openweight crew rowing during the 2017 Boat Race on the river Thames in London. ̽��ֱ��Cambridge women’s crew beat Oxford in the race. ̽��ֱ��members of this crew were among those analysed in the study.

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

Yes

Tiller the Hun? Farmers in Roman Empire converted to Hun lifestyle – and vice versa

fpjl2 — Wed, 22 Mar 2017 18:43:46 +0000

Marauding hordes of barbarian Huns, under their ferocious leader Attila, are often credited with triggering the fall of one of history’s greatest empires: Rome.

Historians believe Hunnic incursions into Roman provinces bordering the Danube during the 5th century AD opened the floodgates for nomadic tribes to encroach on the empire. This caused a destabilisation that contributed to collapse of Roman power in the West.

According to Roman accounts, the Huns brought only terror and destruction. However, research from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge on gravesite remains in the Roman frontier region of Pannonia (now Hungary) has revealed for the first time how ordinary people may have dealt with the arrival of the Huns.

Biochemical analyses of teeth and bone to test for diet and mobility suggest that, over the course of a lifetime, some farmers on the edge of empire left their homesteads to become Hun-like roaming herdsmen, and consequently, perhaps, took up arms with the tribes.

Other remains from the same gravesites show a dietary shift indicating some Hun discovered a settled way of life and the joys of agriculture – leaving their wanderlust, and possibly their bloodlust, behind.

Lead researcher Dr Susanne Hakenbeck, from Cambridge’s Department of Archaeology, says the Huns may have brought ways of life that appealed to some farmers in the area, as well learning from and settling among the locals. She says this could be evidence of the steady infiltration that shook an empire.

“We know from contemporary accounts that this was a time when treaties between tribes and Romans were forged and fractured, loyalties sworn and broken. ̽��ֱ��lifestyle shifts we see in the skeletons may reflect that turmoil,” says Hakenbeck.

“However, while written accounts of the last century of the Roman Empire focus on convulsions of violence, our new data appear to show some degree of cooperation and coexistence of people living in the frontier zone. Far from being a clash of cultures, alternating between lifestyles may have been an insurance policy in unstable political times.”

For the study, published today in the journal PLOS ONE, Hakenbeck and colleagues tested skeletal remains at five 5th-century sites around Pannonia, including one in a former civic centre as well as rural homesteads.

̽��ֱ��team analysed the isotope ratios of carbon, nitrogen, strontium and oxygen in bones and teeth. They compared this data to sites in central Germany, where typical farmers of the time lived, and locations in Siberia and Mongolia, home to nomadic herders up to the Mongol period and beyond.

̽��ֱ��results allowed researchers to distinguish between settled agricultural populations and nomadic animal herders in the former Roman border area through isotopic traces of diet and mobility in the skeletons.

All the Pannonian gravesites not only held examples of both lifestyles, but also many individuals that shifted between lifestyles in both directions over the course of a lifetime. “ ̽��ֱ��exchange of subsistence strategies is evidence for a way of life we don’t see anywhere else in Europe at this time,” says Hakenbeck.

She says there are no clear lifestyle patterns based on sex or accompanying grave goods, or even ‘skull modification’ – the binding of the head as a baby to create a pointed skull – commonly associated with the Hun.

“Nomadic animal herding and skull modification may be practices imported by Hun tribes into the bounds of empire and adopted by some of the agriculturalist inhabitants.”

̽��ֱ��diet of farmers was relatively boring, says Hakenbeck, consisting primarily of plants such as wheat, vegetables and pulses, with a modicum of meat and almost no fish.

̽��ֱ��herders’ diet on the other hand was high in animal protein and augmented with fish. They also ate large quantities of millet, which has a distinctive carbon isotope ratio that can be identified in human bones. Millet is a hardy plant that was hugely popular with nomadic populations of central Asia because it grows in a few short weeks.

Roman sources of the time were dismissive of this lifestyle. Ammianus Marcellinus, a Roman official, wrote of the Hun that they “care nothing for using the ploughshare, but they live upon flesh and an abundance of milk.”

“While Roman authors considered them incomprehensibly uncivilised and barely human, it seems many of citizens at the edge of Rome’s empire were drawn to the Hun lifestyle, just as some nomads took to a more settled way of life,” says Hakenbeck.

However, there is one account that hints at the appeal of the Hun, that of Roman politician Priscus. While on a diplomatic mission to the court of Attila, he describes encountering a former merchant who had abandoned life in the Empire for that of the Hun enemy as, after war, they “live in inactivity, enjoying what they have got, and not at all, or very little, harassed.”

New archaeological analysis suggests people of Western Roman Empire switched between Hunnic nomadism and settled farming over a lifetime. Findings may be evidence of tribal encroachment that undermined Roman Empire during 5th century AD, contributing to its fall.

While Roman authors considered them incomprehensibly uncivilised and barely human, it seems many of citizens at the edge of Rome’s empire were drawn to the Hun lifestyle, just as some nomads took to a more settled way of life

Susanne Hakenbeck

Erzsébet Fóthi, Hungarian Natural History Museum Budapest

Example of a modified skull, a practice assumed to be Hunnic that may have been appropriated by local farmers within the bounds of the Western Roman Empire.

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

Yes

Neanderthals may have been infected by diseases carried out of Africa by humans, say researchers

fpjl2 — Mon, 11 Apr 2016 08:23:09 +0000

A new study suggests that Neanderthals across Europe may well have been infected with diseases carried out of Africa by waves of anatomically modern humans, or Homo sapiens. As both were species of hominin, it would have been easier for pathogens to jump populations, say researchers. This might have contributed to the demise of Neanderthals.

Researchers from the universities of Cambridge and Oxford Brookes have reviewed the latest evidence gleaned from pathogen genomes and DNA from ancient bones, and concluded that some infectious diseases are likely to be many thousands of years older than previously believed.

There is evidence that our ancestors interbred with Neanderthals and exchanged genes associated with disease. There is also evidence that viruses moved into humans from other hominins while still in Africa. So, the researchers argue, it makes sense to assume that humans could, in turn, pass disease to Neanderthals, and that – if we were mating with them – we probably did.

Dr Charlotte Houldcroft, from Cambridge’s Division of Biological Anthropology, says that many of the infections likely to have passed from humans to Neanderthals – such as tapeworm, tuberculosis, stomach ulcers and types of herpes – are chronic diseases that would have weakened the hunter-gathering Neanderthals, making them less fit and able to find food, which could have catalysed extinction of the species.

“Humans migrating out of Africa would have been a significant reservoir of tropical diseases,” says Houldcroft. “For the Neanderthal population of Eurasia, adapted to that geographical infectious disease environment, exposure to new pathogens carried out of Africa may have been catastrophic.”

“However, it is unlikely to have been similar to Columbus bringing disease into America and decimating native populations. It’s more likely that small bands of Neanderthals each had their own infection disasters, weakening the group and tipping the balance against survival,” says Houldcroft.

New techniques developed in the last few years mean researchers can now peer into the distant past of modern disease by unravelling its genetic code, as well as extracting DNA from fossils of some of our earliest ancestors to detect traces of disease.

In a paper published today in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, Houldcroft, who also studies modern infections at Great Ormond Street Hospital, and Dr Simon Underdown, a researcher in human evolution from Oxford Brookes ̽��ֱ��, write that genetic data shows many infectious diseases have been “co-evolving with humans and our ancestors for tens of thousands to millions of years”.

̽��ֱ��longstanding view of infectious disease is that it exploded with the dawning of agriculture some 8,000 years ago, as increasingly dense and sedentary human populations coexisted with livestock, creating a perfect storm for disease to spread. ̽��ֱ��researchers say the latest evidence suggests disease had a much longer “burn in period” that pre-dates agriculture.

In fact, they say that many diseases traditionally thought to be ‘zoonoses’, transferred from herd animals into humans, such as tuberculosis, were actually transmitted into the livestock by humans in the first place.

“We are beginning to see evidence that environmental bacteria were the likely ancestors of many pathogens that caused disease during the advent of agriculture, and that they initially passed from humans into their animals,” says Houldcroft.

“Hunter-gatherers lived in small foraging groups. Neanderthals lived in groups of between 15-30 members, for example. So disease would have broken out sporadically, but have been unable to spread very far. Once agriculture came along, these diseases had the perfect conditions to explode, but they were already around.”

There is as yet no hard evidence of infectious disease transmission between humans and Neanderthals; however, considering the overlap in time and geography, and not least the evidence of interbreeding, Houldcroft and Underdown say that it must have occurred.

Neanderthals would have adapted to the diseases of their European environment. There is evidence that humans benefited from receiving genetic components through interbreeding that protected them from some of these: types of bacterial sepsis – blood poisoning occurring from infected wounds – and encephalitis caught from ticks that inhabit Siberian forests.

In turn, the humans, unlike Neanderthals, would have been adapted to African diseases, which they would have brought with them during waves of expansion into Europe and Asia.

̽��ֱ��researchers describe Helicobacter pylori, a bacterium that causes stomach ulcers, as a prime candidate for a disease that humans may have passed to Neanderthals. It is estimated to have first infected humans in Africa 88 to 116 thousand years ago, and arrived in Europe after 52,000 years ago. ̽��ֱ��most recent evidence suggests Neanderthals died out around 40,000 years ago.

Another candidate is herpes simplex 2, the virus which causes genital herpes. There is evidence preserved in the genome of this disease that suggests it was transmitted to humans in Africa 1.6 million years ago from another, currently unknown hominin species that in turn acquired it from chimpanzees.

“ ̽��ֱ��‘intermediate’ hominin that bridged the virus between chimps and humans shows that diseases could leap between hominin species. ̽��ֱ��herpesvirus is transmitted sexually and through saliva. As we now know that humans bred with Neanderthals, and we all carry 2-5% of Neanderthal DNA as a result, it makes sense to assume that, along with bodily fluids, humans and Neanderthals transferred diseases,” says Houldcroft.

Recent theories for the cause of Neanderthal extinction range from climate change to an early human alliance with wolves resulting in domination of the food chain. “It is probable that a combination of factors caused the demise of Neanderthals,” says Houldcroft, “and the evidence is building that spread of disease was an important one.”

Inset image: Dr Charlotte Houldcroft

Review of latest genetic evidence suggests infectious diseases are tens of thousands of years older than previously thought, and that they could jump between species of ‘hominin’. Researchers says that humans migrating out of Africa would have been ‘reservoirs of tropical disease’ – disease that may have sped up Neanderthal extinction.

Humans migrating out of Africa would have been a significant reservoir of tropical diseases

Charlotte Houldcroft

Erich Ferdinand

Neanderthal man

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

Yes

Licence type:

Attribution

Roman toilets gave no clear health benefit, and Romanisation actually spread parasites

fpjl2 — Fri, 08 Jan 2016 01:02:25 +0000

̽��ֱ��Romans are well known for introducing sanitation technology to Europe around 2,000 years ago, including public multi-seat latrines with washing facilities, sewerage systems, piped drinking water from aqueducts, and heated public baths for washing. Romans also developed laws designed to keep their towns free of excrement and rubbish.

However, new archaeological research has revealed that – for all their apparently hygienic innovations – intestinal parasites such as whipworm, roundworm and Entamoeba histolytica dysentery did not decrease as expected in Roman times compared with the preceding Iron Age, they gradually increased.

̽��ֱ��latest research was conducted by Dr Piers Mitchell from Cambridge’s Archaeology and Anthropology Department and is published today in the journal Parasitology. ̽��ֱ��study is the first to use the archaeological evidence for parasites in Roman times to assess “the health consequences of conquering an empire”.

Mitchell brought together evidence of parasites in ancient latrines, human burials and ‘coprolites’ – or fossilised faeces – as well as in combs and textiles from numerous Roman Period excavations across the Roman Empire.

Not only did certain intestinal parasites appear to increase in prevalence with the coming of the Romans, but Mitchell also found that, despite their famous culture of regular bathing, ‘ectoparasites’ such as lice and fleas were just as widespread among Romans as in Viking and medieval populations, where bathing was not widely practiced.

Some excavations revealed evidence for special combs to strip lice from hair, and delousing may have been a daily routine for many people living across the Roman Empire

Piers Mitchell said: “Modern research has shown that toilets, clean drinking water and removing faeces from the streets all decrease risk of infectious disease and parasites. So we might expect the prevalence of faecal oral parasites such as whipworm and roundworm to drop in Roman times – yet we find a gradual increase. ̽��ֱ��question is why?”

One possibility Mitchell offers is that it may have actually been the warm communal waters of the bathhouses that helped spread the parasitic worms. Water was infrequently changed in some baths, and a scum would build on the surface from human dirt and cosmetics. “Clearly, not all Roman baths were as clean as they might have been,” said Mitchell.

Another possible explanation raised in the study is the Roman use of human excrement as a crop fertilizer. While modern research has shown this does increase crop yields, unless the faeces are composted for many months before being added to the fields, it can result in the spread of parasite eggs that can survive in the grown plants.

“It is possible that sanitation laws requiring the removal of faeces from the streets actually led to reinfection of the population as the waste was often used to fertilise crops planted in farms surrounding the towns,” said Mitchell.

̽��ֱ��study found fish tapeworm eggs to be surprisingly widespread in the Roman Period compared to Bronze and Iron Age Europe. One possibility Mitchell suggests for the rise in fish tapeworm is the Roman love of a sauce called garum.

Made from pieces of fish, herbs, salt and flavourings, garum was used as both a culinary ingredient and a medicine. This sauce was not cooked, but allowed to ferment in the sun. Garum was traded right across the empire, and may have acted as the “vector” for fish tapeworm, says Mitchell.

“ ̽��ֱ��manufacture of fish sauce and its trade across the empire in sealed jars would have allowed the spread of the fish tapeworm parasite from endemic areas of northern Europe to all people across the empire. This appears to be a good example of the negative health consequences of conquering an empire,” he said.

̽��ֱ��study shows a range of parasites infected people living in the Roman Empire, but did they try to treat these infections medically? While Mitchell says care must be taken when relating ancient texts to modern disease diagnoses, some researchers have suggested that intestinal worms described by Roman medical practitioner Galen (130AD - 210AD) may include roundworm, pinworm and a species of tapeworm.

Galen believed these parasites were formed from spontaneous generation in putrefied matter under the effect of heat. He recommended treatment through modified diet, bloodletting, and medicines believed to have a cooling and drying effect, in an effort to restore balance to the ‘four humours’: black bile, yellow bile, blood and phlegm.

Added Mitchell: “This latest research on the prevalence of ancient parasites suggests that Roman toilets, sewers and sanitation laws had no clear benefit to public health. ̽��ֱ��widespread nature of both intestinal parasites and ectoparasites such as lice also suggests that Roman public baths surprisingly gave no clear health benefit either.”

“It seems likely that while Roman sanitation may not have made people any healthier, they would probably have smelt better.”

Reference
Mitchell, PD. Human parasites in the Roman World: health consequences of conquering an empire. Parasitology; 8 Jan 2016.

Archaeological evidence shows that intestinal parasites such as whipworm became increasingly common across Europe during the Roman Period, despite the apparent improvements the empire brought in sanitation technologies.

It seems likely that while Roman sanitation may not have made people any healthier, they would probably have smelt better

Piers Mitchell

Left: Craig Taylor. Right: Piers Mitchell

Left: Roman latrines from Lepcis Magna in Libya. Right: Roman whipworm egg from Turkey

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

Yes

Opinion: Why the Romans weren’t quite as clean as you might have thought

Anonymous — Wed, 06 Jan 2016 10:51:12 +0000

Prior to the Romans, Greece was the only part of Europe to have had toilets. But by the peak of the Roman Empire in the 3rd century AD, the Romans had introduced sanitation to much of their domain, stretching across western and southern Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. Their impressive technologies included large multi-seat public latrines, sewers, clean water in aqueducts, elegant public baths for washing, and laws that required towns to remove waste from the streets. But how effective were these measures in improving the health of the population?

Modern clinical research has shown that toilets and clean drinking water decrease the risk of human gastrointestinal infections by bacteria, viruses and parasites. We might, therefore, expect that this area of health would improve under the Romans compared with the situation in Bronze Age and Iron Age Europe, when these sanitation technologies did not exist. Similarly, we might also expect that ectoparasites such as fleas and body lice might become less common with the introduction of regular bathing and personal hygiene.

A new study I’ve published in Parasitology has brought together all the archaeological evidence for intestinal parasites and ectoparasites in the Roman world in order to evaluate the impact of Roman sanitation technology upon health. ̽��ֱ��study compares the species of parasites present before the Romans in the Bronze Age and Iron Age, and also after the Romans in the early medieval period.

Bog standard. Sphinx Wang/Shutterstock.com

I found a number of surprising findings. Unexpectedly, there was no drop in parasites spread by poor sanitation following the arrival of the Romans. In fact, parasites such as whipworm, roundworm and dysentery infections gradually increased during the Roman period instead of falling as expected. This suggests that Roman sanitation technologies such as latrines, sewers and clean water were not as effective in improving gastrointestinal health as you might think.

Whipworm egg. Piers Mitchell, Author provided

It is possible that the expected benefits from these technologies was counteracted by the effects of laws requiring waste from the streets to be taken outside towns. Texts from the Roman period mention how human waste was used to fertilise crops in the fields, so parasite eggs from human faeces would have contaminated these foods and allowed reinfection of the populations when they ate.

̽��ֱ��second surprising finding was that there was no sign of a decrease in ectoparasites following the introduction of public bathing facilities to keep the population clean. Analysis of the number of fleas and lice in York, in northern England, found similar numbers of parasites in Roman soil layers as was the case in Viking and medieval soil layers. Since the Viking and medieval populations of York did not bath regularly, we would have expected Roman bathing to reduce the number of parasites found in Roman York. This suggests that Roman baths had no clear beneficial effect upon health when it comes to ectoparasites.

̽��ֱ��head of fish tapeworm, Diphyllobothrium latum. 커뷰, CC BY-SA

̽��ֱ��fish tapeworm also became more common in Europe under the Romans. In Bronze Age and Iron Age Europe fish tapeworm eggs have only been found in France and Germany. However, under the Roman Empire, fish tapeworm was found in six different European countries. One possibility that would explain the apparent increase in distribution of the parasite is the adoption of Roman culinary habits.

One popular Roman food was garum, an uncooked fermented fish sauce made from fish, herbs, spices and salt. We have archaeological and textual evidence for its manufacture, storage in sealed clay pots, transport and sale across the empire. It is possible that garum made in northern Europe would have contained fish infected with fish tapeworm, and when traded to other parts of the empire this could have infected people living outside the original area endemic for the disease.

This is not to say that Roman sanitation was a waste of time. It would have been useful having public latrines so that people in town would not have had to return home to use the toilet. A culture of public bathing would have made people smell better too. However, the archaeological evidence does not indicate any health benefit from this sanitation, but rather that Romanisation led to increase in certain parasite species due to trade and migration across the empire.

Piers Mitchell, Affiliated Lecturer in Biological Anthropology, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge

This article was originally published on ̽��ֱ��Conversation. Read the original article.

̽��ֱ��opinions expressed in this article are those of the individual author(s) and do not represent the views of the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge.

Piers Mitchell (Department of Biological Anthroplogy) discusses what Roman toilets did for the health of the population.

Craig James

Roman toilets

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

For image use please see separate credits above.

Yes

Licence type:

Attribution-Noncommerical