Childhood health in the Roman World: perspectives from the centre and margin of the Empire.

Gowland, R.L.; Redfern, R.C.

Abstract

Very few studies to date have presented contextualised interpretations of bioarchaeological evidence from Roman urban environments. This paper compares and contrasts the osteological data for childhood health from two urban centres, one at the centre and the other at the margins of the Roman Empire – Rome and London. We synthesise recently published and newly recorded data on childhood indicators of physiological stress (e.g. cribra orbitalia and enamel hypoplasias) from both sites. Contrary to expectations, we find that the prevalence of these stress indicators is comparable between sites. In order to contextualise these findings we compare the results to published data from other sites of the same period (from both rural and urban locales) within the respective countries. We find that the data from London is anomalous for Roman Britain, while that from Rome is similar to findings from contemporaneous Italian sites. We interpret these findings in terms of child-rearing practices, the local living environment and high levels of migration into Roman London from Mediterranean regions.

Citation

Gowland, R., & Redfern, R. (2010). Childhood health in the Roman World: perspectives from the centre and margin of the Empire. Childhood in the Past, 3(1), 15-42. https://doi.org/10.1179/cip.2010.3.1.15

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: 2010
• Deposit Date: Jan 13, 2011
• Journal: Childhood in the Past
• Print ISSN: 1758-5716
• Electronic ISSN: 2040-8528
• Publisher: Taylor and Francis Group
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 3
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 15-42
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1179/cip.2010.3.1.15