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Life and Death in A Civitas Capital. Metabolic Disease and Trauma in The Children From Late Roman Dorchester, Dorset (Pages 405-416)
Life and Death in A Civitas Capital. Metabolic Disease and Trauma in The Children From Late Roman Dorchester, Dorset (Pages 405-416)
ABSTRACT
The impact that Romanization and the
development of urban centers had on the health of the
Romano-British population is little understood. A reexamination of the skeletal remains of 364 nonadults
from the civitas capital at Roman Dorchester (Durnovaria) in Dorset was carried out to measure the health of
the children living in this small urban area. The cemetery
population was divided into two groups; the rst buried
their dead organized within an eastwest alignment with
possible Christian-style graves, and the second with more
varied pagan graves, aligned northsouth. A higher
prevalence of malnutrition and trauma was evident in the
children from Dorchester than in any other published
Romano-British group, with levels similar to those seen
in postmedieval industrial communities. Cribra orbitalia
was present in 38.5% of the children, with rickets and/or
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WILEY-LISS, INC.
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M.E. LEWIS
2002; Redfern, 2007, 2008). In understanding the features of Roman society that may have impacted on the
health of children, we face certain challenges. Documentary evidence from Roman Britain is scarce, and any information on weaning, child rearing, education, health,
marriage, and employment of children comes mainly
from the Mediterranean. Arguments surrounding the
extent to which Roman culture was adopted by the
native population in Britain are still ongoing, with
the idea of Romanization, whether conceptualized in
terms of imperially imposed acculturation or native emulation (Millett, 1990), gradually being replaced by the
models such as creolization (Webster, 2001). There is an
increasing awareness of the diversity of the responses to
Roman inuence and the multitude of identities
expressed in the material culture and social practice
(Mattingly, 2002, 2006).
The children excavated from the late-Romano-British
cemetery of Poundbury Camp (3rd5th century AD) represent the largest sample of nonadult skeletons dating
from the period. This work reports on the recent reexamination of the 364 nonadults from Poundbury Camp
and focuses on new evidence for high levels of rickets,
scurvy, and trauma in the children. The reasons behind
the pathology in this nonadult group are discussed
within the context of urbanization in Roman Britain.
MATERIALS
The cemetery at Poundbury Camp in Dorset was excavated between 1966 and 1982 and is located at the foot
of an Iron Age hillfort, overlooking the River Frome
(Green, 1987). More than 1,400 graves were identied,
with 1,200 burials recovered. The cemetery rst served
the Durotrigian Iron Age hillfort (1st century BC1st
century AD), before becoming incorporated into a small
rural Romano-British settlement (13 centuries AD),
with both groups burying their dead on the slopes of the
hillfort (see Fig. 1). By the end of the 3rd century AD,
Poundbury Camp had become the main burial location
for the people living in Durnovaria (modern Dorchester)
immediately to the east, a relatively small civitas capital
(town) originally created for the Durotriges of Dorset
(Wacher, 1992). Little is understood about the living conditions within this urban settlement, and this lack of
knowledge about what occupations people carried out,
how they sourced their food and materials, and the density and identity of urban sites is a common and wellrecognized problem within Roman archaeology (Jones,
1991a; Burnham et al., 2001). However, extensive excavations at Greyhound Yard (in the center of Durnovaria)
show the development of the town from timber buildings
to extensive stone houses in the 4th century. By the end
of the Roman period, these were often subdivided into
several living spaces, with adjacent-aisled buildings suggesting accommodation for tenants, laborers, and slaves.
Bronze working and iron smithing may also have been
carried out (Woodward et al., 1993). The presence of pig,
dog, cat, and raven bones indicates a build-up of refuse
at the site that attracted scavengers to middens. It is
likely that the inhabitants of Durnovaria followed a typical diet of meat (ox, sheep, goat, pig, chicken, red, and
roe deer), marine and freshwater sh and diary products, with plums, cabbages, and pears being introduced
to the area by the Romans (King, 1991; Smith, 1993;
Cool, 2006). Evidence for imported foods such as wine,
olive oil, gs, dates, grapes, corn, and chamomile has
American Journal of Physical Anthropology
also been found in the south of Britain during this period, as the result of extensive trade networks between
Britain and Europe (Jones, 1991b; Gale, 2003).
The skeletal sample comprised 796 adults and 404
nonadults. The children, including perinates, were
evenly distributed throughout the cemetery (see Fig. 2),
suggesting that they underwent the same burial treatment as the adults. There were no clusters of particular
age groups, with the exception of a group of infants to
the east of the cemetery, buried within a smithy (R14).
In the original report, the cemetery was divided into six
separate burial areas to aid in the analysis (see Fig. 2).
The Main cemetery area comprised the majority of burials (n 5 1,028) organized in neat rows, typical of many
Romano-British urban cemeteries (Cleary, 1992). Most of
these burials were aligned eastwest and contained single inhumations. This area of the cemetery included 11
mausolea, thought to be reserved for the burial of highstatus individuals and their families (including their
slaves), as well as wooden, lead and stone cofns, and
burials packed with gypsum or plaster (Molleson, 1989).
There was a distinct lack of gravegoods. Burials, showing these characteristics were assigned to study Group
1. The other cemetery areas comprised graves that were
aligned northsouth with a variety of grave inclusions
and a lack of cofns and hobnails (Group 2).
The meaning behind these two seemingly contemporaneous burial types is still a matter of debate. The formal
alignment of the Group 1 graves has been suggested to
be the result of managed Christian cemeteries, where
the mode of burial and eastwest alignment was dictated
by the Romanized elite (Philpott, 1991; Sparey-Green,
2004).
The Group 2 burials included ve prone burials, and
the only late Roman crouched burial at the site. Grave
goods included glass and jet beads, bone pins and bracelets, and copper alloy brooches, and the three cremation
burials in this section of the cemetery indicates a small
segment of the population who continued to practice traditional burial rites, whereas the general mode of burial
was undergoing change (Farwell and Molleson, 1993,
p 30). It is also possible that these burials reect a
reintroduction of ancient burial practices at the end of
Roman occupation. Food offerings and hobnails are
thought to represent the pagan tradition of furnishing
for the afterlife and the journey across the Styx (Clarke,
1979; Baldwin, 1985). The similarity in the burial orientation and gravegoods suggests that the burials in Group
2 represent individuals that shared a similar identity
that was different from those of the general population
in Group 1.
The differences in burial rite between these two
groups provide a useful tool for comparing child health
between two potentially contrasting sections of RomanoBritish society.
METHODS
The sample comprised 364 nonadults (\17 years).
Age-at-death estimates were obtained using standards of
development for the deciduous and permanent dentition
published by Moorrees et al. (1963a,b) and tabulated by
Smith (1991). Where no teeth were present, diaphyseal
lengths and skeletal maturation were used to assign an
age (Ubelaker, 1989). Perinates were aged using British
standards developed by Scheuer et al. (1980) based on
diaphyseal lengths. The skeletons were divided into
407
Fig. 1. Map showing the location of Poundbury and Dorchester (Durnovaria). After Farwell and Molleson (1993, p 3).
Fig. 2. Distribution of child graves (shaded) within the Poundbury Camp cemetery (adapted from Farwell and Molleson, 1993).
[Color gure can be viewed in the online issue, which is available at www.interscience.wiley.com.]
seven age categories, with individuals in the last age category (14.517.0 years), estimated to be older than 17.0
years when the root of the third molar was complete
(Rc 5 16.9) but the apex open (Moorrees et al., 1963b).
These biological ages are a useful tool for examining
health within key stages of a developing childs life (i.e.,
at birth, during infancy, and adolescence), but do not
necessarily coincide with the cultural concepts of childhood within the Roman period, where girls as young as
12 could be married, and males may not have been
viewed as fully adult until they were 25 years of age
(Revell, 2005, p 50). Vitamin D deciency (rickets and
osteomalacia) was diagnosed using the criteria set out
by Ortner and colleagues (Ortner and Ericksen, 1997;
American Journal of Physical Anthropology
408
M.E. LEWIS
TABLE 1. Age at death and burial location of the Poundbury Camp nonadults
Perinate
Group 1
Group 2
Total
a
b
40 (12)
15 (38)
55 (15)
0.01.0
1.12.5
2.66.5
6.610.5
10.614.5
14.617.0
Age
Totalb
79 (27)
8 (20.5)
87 (24)
45 (98)
1 (2)
46 (13)
50 (15)
5 (13)
55 (15)
38 (12)
3 (8)
41 (11)
34 (10)
0 (0)
34 (9)
10 (3)
3 (8)
13 (3.5)
30 (9)
3 (8)
33 (9)
325 (89)
39 (11)
364 (
The number in parenthesis is the rounded % of the total for each group.
The number in parenthesis in this column is the rounded % of the total nonadults.
RESULTS
Age-at-death
Of the 364 nonadults from the late Romano-British
period, the majority came from the ordered cemetery
area (Group 1, 89%), with four (1.1%) located within
Mausolea (two perinates and two children aged 10.6
14.5 years) and six (1.6%) from high-status graves and
lead-lined cofns. Group 2 comprised 39 (11%) of the
nonadult burials (Table 1, Fig. 3a). Only 331 skeletons
were complete enough to be placed within an age category. Infants (i.e., 0.01.0 years) made up the largest
group (87 or 24%) with perinates (under 41 weeks) and
the 2.66.5-year-olds making up the second largest age
categories. Perinates occurred in both Groups, however,
there were signicantly more in Group 2 (38%; X2 5
18.57; P 5 0.001, d.f.1). In addition, Group 2 had the
largest number of adolescents (i.e., 14.617.0 years; Fig.
3b), but this was not statistically signicant.
Metabolic disease
Of the 200 nonadults with orbits preserved, 77 (38.5%)
had cribra orbitalia (Table 2), with Grades 2 and 3 formAmerican Journal of Physical Anthropology
409
Fig. 3. A: Number of nonadults in each age category for the site and for each burial group. B: Percent distribution of nonadults
in each age category, by burial group.
Trauma
Single and multiple rib fractures were recorded in 12
children (5.4% with ribs), with a total of 20 fractured
ribs (Table 3). All were located in Group 1. The ages
ranged from perinate to c.7 years of age. Where the ribs
could be identied, the majority were right mid ribs,
with between two and ve ribs affected in some individuals, and a mix of healed and healing lesions (see Fig. 9).
One child, aged around 1.5 years, had a possible healed
fracture of the rst rib, while another in the same age
group had a fractured left second rib. Six of these children also had evidence for other pathology on their skeleton (i.e., rickets, porotic hyperostosis, or periostitis). In
addition to fractures of the ribs, a child aged around 7
months from Group 1 presented a bucket-handle fracture of the distal metaphyses of the right tibia (see Fig.
10) conforming to the SalterHarris Scheme B (Salter
and Harris, 1963). Only one other case of child trauma,
a possible bowing deformity at Cannington (Brothwell
and Powers, 2000) has ever been reported in nonadult
remains from a Romano-British site.
American Journal of Physical Anthropology
410
M.E. LEWIS
TABLE 2. Number and percent metabolic disease in the nonadults, by cemetery location
Location
Cribra orbitalia
Porotic hyperostosis
Vitamin D deciency
Vitamin C deciency
Vitamin C and D
deciency
Group 1
Perinate
0.01.0
1.12.5
2.66.5
6.610.5
10.614.5
14.617.0
Nonadult
Total G1
Observed
16
33
44
52
50
44
8
0
176
Affected
0(
2 (6)
14 (32)
18 (35)
19 (38)
17 (39)
1 (12.5)
0(
71 (40)
Observed
34
71
39
48
33
33
0
15
273
Affected
0(
5 (7)
6 (15)
3 (6)
2 (6)
0(
0(
2 (13)
18 (6.5)
Observed
35
43
36
37
29
29
8
3
220
Affected
0 (0)a
7 (16)
3 (8)
0(
0(
0(
0(
0(
10 (4.5)
Observed
35
43
36
37
29
29
8
3
219
Affected
0(
3 (7)
4 (11)
2 (5)
1 (3)
1 (3)
0(
1 (75)
12 (5)
Observed
35
43
36
37
29
29
8
3
219
Affected
1 (3)
4 (9)
2 (5.5)
0(
0(
0(
0(
0(
7 (3)
Observed
10
3
1
4
2
0
3
1
24
200
Affected
0(
0(
0(
1 (25)
2 (100)
0(
2 (75)
1 (100)
6 (25)
77(38.5)
Observed
13
8
1
4
3
0
0
0
29
302
Affected
0(
4 (50)
0(
0(
0(
0(
0(
0(
4 (14)
22 (7)
observed
13
5
1
3
1
0
3
2
28
248
Affected
0(
2 (40)
0(
0(
0(
0(
0(
0(
2 (7)
12 (4.8)
Observed
13
5
1
3
1
0
3
2
28
248
Affected
0(
0(
0(
0(
0(
0(
0(
0(
0(
12 (4.8)
Observed
13
5
1
3
1
0
3
2
28
248
Affected
0(
0(
0(
0(
0(
0(
0(
0(
0(
7 (2.8)
Group 2
Perinate
0.01.0
1.12.5
2.66.5
6.610.5
10.614.5
14.617.0
Nonadult
Total G2
Total
a
The number in parenthesis is the rounded % of the total for each group.
Fig. 4. True prevalence rate (TPR) of cribra orbitalia in the nonadults by burial group and severity of lesion.
DISCUSSION
The aim of this study was to re-examine the skeletal
remains of the children from Poundbury Camp to
explore the health of a community living in an urban
settlement during the Romano-British period. The division of the cemetery into two groups, the rst which buried its dead organized within an eastwest alignment
(Group 1, Christian), and the second with more varied
graves aligned northsouth (Group 2 pagan"), was carried out in an attempt identify any possible differences
in the life styles of the two groups. Statistically signicant differences between the two groups were not
American Journal of Physical Anthropology
411
Fig. 5. True prevalence rate (TPR) of children displaying metabolic disease in each burial group.
412
M.E. LEWIS
Fig. 8. Osteopenia of the right ilium, ischium, and pubis of PC558. Note the porosity and thinning of the cortex (A) and thickened trabeculae (B) on the ilium that is separate to the postmortem damages at the edges of these bones (C).
Group 1
30
43
34
35
27
29
7
205
1
6
4
0
1
0
0
12
Group 2
(3)a
(17)
(12)
(
(4)
(
(
(100)
9
7
1
2
3
0
3
25
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
a
The number in parenthesis is the rounded % of the total for
each group.
(11%) of the Poundbury children were diagnosed as having a specic metabolic disease. A literature review of
other Romano-British samples revealed only three cases
of rickets, and one possible case of infantile scurvy, from
sites in London (Conheeney, 2000; Mackinder, 2000).
This may be the result of differences in the methods
used to identify the conditions in these earlier reports,
rather than a true difference in the health patterns of
these samples. Once again, the rates at Poundbury
Camp are more similar to those reported from sites in
postmedieval England, where Brickley and colleagues
American Journal of Physical Anthropology
Child-rearing practices
We have no documentary evidence from Britain to
indicate whether Roman feeding practices were adopted
by the Iron Age population, but these methods may go
some way in explaining the level of malnutrition in the
youngest children from Poundbury Camp. Writing in the
early 2nd century AD, Soranus of Ephesus provides a
disturbing account of infant-feeding practices where children were starved for the rst 2 days of their lives,
denied colostrum, and often fed honey and goats milk as
a breastmilk substitute (Jackson, 1988; Temkin, 1991).
This diet would have left the child susceptible to dysentery and, as nonhuman protein causes irritation to
immature intestines, anemia (Jelliffe and Blackman,
1962). The gradual introduction of solid foods was recommended after 6 months of age (Temkin, 1991). Prowse
and co-workers (2008) caution that, as medical texts
were addressed to the wealthier members of society, or
to wet nurses charged with feeding slaves or foundlings,
they should not be seen to reect the wide variety of
practices that might be expected across the Empire. Isotopic evidence from Roman Egypt (Dupras et al., 2001)
and Italy (Prowse et al., 2004, 2007, 2008) indicates that
weaning was complete by 3 years. This is reected in
the carbon and nitrogen isotope evidence from Queensford Farm in England (Fuller et al., 2006) where a complete cessation of breastfeeding seemed to occur between
3 and 4 years. However, solid foods appear to have
entered the diet later than Roman medical texts suggest
at 1.5 years of age.
That rickets was a health problem in Roman Italy
may be inferred by the comments Soranus makes about
child rearing. Once the child is released from their swaddling clothes, mothers are warned not to let the children
walk so quickly as their legs . . . may become distorted
in the region of the thighs . . . the ground being too hard,
causing the bones to give a little, since the bones have
not yet become strong (Temkin, 1991, p 116). It is possible that the practice of swaddling, limiting the skins
access to ultraviolet light, sporadic access to breastmilk,
and early weaning resulted in the high prevalence of
rickets in the infants from Dorchester. The widespread
distribution of vitamin D deciency throughout the cemetery site, and in both Groups, indicates that this was a
systemic problem in the community. Such high levels of
rickets in later populations are usually attributed to air
pollution in an urban or industrial environment (Lewis,
2002; Brickley et al., 2006).
Ascorbic acid is accessible to infants through mothers
breastmilk and in their fetal stores. If children are not
breastfed (Shorbe, 1953) or breastfeeding mothers are
decient in vitamin C (Fain, 2005), then infantile scurvy
may occur. Scurvy normally occurs in infants between 8
and 11 months (Brickley and Ives, 2006), and clinical
manifestations can appear after the child have lacked
the vitamin for as little as 24 months (Tamura et al.,
2000). Because of rapid growth in infancy, there is a
greater chance that they will develop defective blood vessels and show more obvious skeletal manifestations of
the condition than adults (Brickley and Ives, 2006). At
Poundbury Camp, seven infants had evidence of scurvy,
and this persisted in the children aged between 2.6 and
413
Trauma
The prevalence of rib fractures in the children from
Poundbury Camp is remarkable. Although rib fractures
are the most commonly recorded type of fracture in British archaeological material (Brickley, 2006), they are
rarely considered in nonadults. In modern clinical medicine, rib fractures are commonly associated with physical
child abuse. Also, diagnostic is spiral and metaphyseal
fractures of the humerus, femur, and tibia (Brogdon,
American Journal of Physical Anthropology
414
M.E. LEWIS
CONCLUSIONS
The impact that urban centers had on the health of
the Romano-British population has been a matter of
debate for many years. The lack of comparative skeletal
studies and a paucity of documentary evidence for this
part of the Roman Empire means that we are unsure
which aspects of Roman culture were adopted by the
general population after the conquest. Evidence from the
children buried at Poundbury Camp shows that there
was a high level of malnutrition in the sample, with
many children suffering from anemia, rickets, scurvy,
and general osteopenia. Suggestions that Poundbury
Camp is in some way unusual for Roman Britain are yet
American Journal of Physical Anthropology
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I thank Drs. Robert Krusynski and Margaret Clegg
(Natural History Museum, London) for access to the
Poundbury Camp material, and permission to photograph the specimens, Edeltraud Asopeck for help with
Figure 2, and the Editor and anonymous reviewers for
their comments on the original manuscript. Dr. Hella
Eckardt and Prof. Mike Fulford provided thoughtful and
constructive comments on earlier drafts of this work for
which I am grateful.
LITERATURE CITED
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cemetery at Lankhills. Winchestera reassessment of the evidence. Oxf J Arch 4:93103.
Brickley M. 2006. Rib fractures in the archaeological record: a
useful source of sociocultural information? Int J Osteoarch
16:6175.
Brickley M, Berry H, Western G. 2006. The people: physical anthropology. In: Brickley M, Buteux S, Adams J, Cherrington
R, editors. St Martins uncovered investigations in the churchyard of St Martins-in-the-Bull Ring, Birmingham, 2001.
Oxford: Oxbow Books. p 90151.
Brickley M, Ives R. 2006. Skeletal manifestations of infantile
scurvy. Am J Phys Anthropol 129:163172.
Brickley M, Ives R. 2008. The bioarchaeology of metabolic bone
disease. Oxford: Academic Press.
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