Ancient Studies Articles

Detail of a snail-and-fruit basket from a 4th century
mosaic in Basilica Patriarcale in Aquileia. (wikimedia commons) Kristina finally jumps in to read her own article, Food for Rome, on the podcast thanks to permission from the journal publisher, Elsevier. This is an article that benefits from tables and figures, so do click through to the article at the Journal of Anthropological Archaeology site to see those visualizations while you listen or afterwards.
Abstract: During the Empire, the population of Rome was composed mostly of lower-class free citizens and slaves. Viewed from historical records, the Roman diet included primarily olives, wine, and wheat, but poor and enslaved Romans may have eaten whatever they were able to find and afford, leading to significant heterogeneity in the Roman diet. Previous carbon and nitrogen isotope analyses of skeletons from Imperial Italy have begun to reveal variation in diet, but little is known about what people ate in the capital city. This study complements previous work by adding new isotope data from human skeletons found in two Imperial-period (1st–3rd centuries AD) cemeteries in Rome. These data suggest that urban and suburban diets differed, most notably in the consumption of the C4 grain millet. Comparing these new data with all published palaeodietary data from Imperial Italy demonstrates that significant variation existed in the diet of the common people.
Full Citation: Killgrove, K. and R.H. Tykot. 2013. Food for Rome: a stable isotope investigation of diet in the Imperial period (1st-3rd centuries AD). Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 32(1):28-38. DOI 10.1016/j.jaa.2012.08.002.
Links to:

• the article at the Journal of Anthropological Archaeology.
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In this episode, Sarah reads two open-access palaeopathology articles.
Simona Minozzi, Federica Bianchi, Walter Pantano, Paola Catalano, Davide Caramella and Gino Fornaciari, (2013) "A Case of Gout from Imperial Rome (1st-2nd century AD)." J Clin Res Bioeth 4:4.

Abstract: The study of pathological alterations in ancient skeletal remains may contribute to the
reconstruction of the history of diseases and health conditions of ancient populations. Therefore, in recent research palaeopathology provides an important point of view in bioarchaeology and medicine. This work describes the bone alterations observed in the skeleton of an adult woman found during archaeological excavations in the greatest necropolis of the Imperial Age in Rome. The skeletal remains showed some pathological anomalies and the most evident alterations consisted of multiple osteolytic lesions involving mainly the small bones of the feet, which presented round cavitations and scarce signs of bone repair. Differential diagnosis suggests that this individual was affected by gout, probably associated with hypothyroidism that determined her short stature.
Article Link.
S. Minozzi, A. Lunardini, P. Catalano, D. Caramella, G. Fornaciari, (2013) "Dwarfism in Imperial Rome: A Case of Skeletal Evidence." J Clin Res Bioeth 4:154.
[No Published Abstract]
This article explores a skeleton that shows signs of dwarfism excavated from the Collatina necropolis in eastern Rome. Skeletal evidence for dwarfism in this time period is extremely rare, and this find allows a bioarchaeological window into an occurrence largely known in antiquity from literature and art. Perhaps what was most interesting to me was the discussion toward the end of the article to do with the shift from acceptance to rejection of dwarfs between the Roman and Christian periods.
Article Link.
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This podcast ventures into the exciting realm of digital humanities by taking a look at the aims and methods of the HESTIA Project! We will read Elton Barker (Principal Investigator), Stefan Bouzarovski (Co-Investigator), Chris Pelling (Co-Investigator) and Leif Isaksen (ICT Consultant)'s 2010 article, "Mapping an ancient historian in a digital age: the Herodotus Encoded Space-Text-Image Archive (HESTIA)."

ABSTRACT: "HESTIA (the Herodotus Encoded Space-Text-Imaging Archive) employs the latest digital technology to develop an innovative methodology to the study of spatial data in Herodotus’ Histories. Using a digital text of Herodotus, freely available from the Perseus on-line library, to capture all the place-names mentioned in the narrative, we construct a database to house that information and represent it in a series of mapping applications, such as GIS,
GoogleEarth and GoogleMap Timeline. As a collaboration of academics from the disciplines of Classics, Geography, and Archaeological Computing, HESTIA has the twin aim of investigating the ways geography is represented in the Histories and of bringing Herodotus’ world into people’s homes."
The Article Itself.
Link to the Leeds International Classical Studies Journal
Podcast Link.
Links to Some Other Projects Mentioned in the Article:
1. Perseus Project
2. PostgreSQL
3. PostGIS
4. TimeMap
5. Nick Rabinowitz's Blog

David Rohrbacher (NCF) is a prominent scholar of late antique historiography. In this important article, he weighs in on the sources of the (in)famous Historia Augusta. If you like this article, I would try his excellent book, Historians of Late Antiquity.
"Abstract: The first step toward unravelling the mysteries of the late Roman biographical collection called the Historia Augusta is to separate out the authentic historical material from the fictions which the author offers in abundance. This article presents a careful re- examination of the evidence for the sources of each section of the work, concluding that the author draws upon Enmann’s Kaisergeschichte and its progeny, Marius Maximus, Herodian, Dexippus, and, for the last Lives, a Greek source, perhaps Eunapius."
Link to Histos Table of Contents.
Link to the Article PDF.
Link to the Podcast. You can also find us on iTunes

This is a podcast of audio versions of ancient studies journal articles and book reviews. Conceived by Sarah Bond, an ancient historian at Marquette University, and Kristina Killgrove, a bioarchaeologist at the University of West Florida, this podcast will bring interdisciplinary research to your earbuds on a weekly basis. Our goal is to increase the popularity of research that cross cuts disciplinary boundaries, including classics, history, linguistics, archaeology, anthropology, philology, art, and osteology. Just as we are committed to bringing these topics together in our research, we hope to bring you audio versions of fascinating articles each week.