The State of Health of Roman Republic to Imperial Roman Period Burials, from the Necropolis of Aquinum, Italy RR Paine1, R Vargiu2, GR Bellini3, D Mancinelli4, P Santoro5 & A Coppa5 1Department of Soc. & Anthropology, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX; 2Istituto Italiano di Antropologia, Roma, Italy; 3Soprintendenza per i Beni Archeologici del Lazio, Italy 4 Dipartimento di Scienze Ambientali, Università de L’Aquila, Italy; 5Dipartimento di Biologia Animale e dell’Uomo, Università La Sapienza di Roma, Italy. Introduction The Aquinum necropolis is a Roman Republic- Imperial Roman period cemetery located just off of the motorway service area near the community of Casilina, Italy (Photos 1). The site is located in the Lazio region of Italy, south of Rome. The necropolis dates back to the the 2ndcentury BC to 2nd century AD. The Roman town of Aquinum is near the present day town of Casilina (Fig. 1). The purpose of this presentation is to report on the frequency of skeletal lesions observed for 123 burials (51 males, 49 females, 7 adults of undetermined sex, and 16 sub-adults). We compare the lesion data from the Republic burials to Imperial period burials from the site of Urbino. Results Table 2. Frequency of skeletal lesions by sex and by group. Sex (g) DJD periostitis Cranial pitting OA Trauma Male (T) 50% 44% 7.8% 32.5% 12% Female (T) 52% 13.5% 0.0% 41% 8% Male (R) 47% 45% 9% 28.5% Female (R) 12.5% 33.3% Male (I) 80% 60% 40% Female (I) 20% 100% Background The burials from the necropolis site of Aquinum represent a sample of burials that span the Roman Republic- Imperial Roman periods. The site was discovered as part of the Casilina East Service Area construction project in part sponsored by Autostrade (Photo 1). The remains were recovered as part of an archaeological contact project that included full osteological analysis of skeletal material. The skeletal material is of mixed quality. Some of the burials are very well preserved making the assessment of health and biological profile easy while other burials are very poorly preserved. Photos. 5, 6 & 7. Tomb 15, from the Risti Fini area of the site, yielded a male 38-54 years old showing skeletal lesions specific to leprosy. The burial dates to the Imperial Roman period (2nd & 3rd cent. AD). Skeletal lesions include periostitis of the lower tibia and fibula, fusion and periostitis of foot and hand bones. T = Total Sample, R = Republic Romans I = Imperial Romans n’s for these samples depends on skeletal elements for each group and sex. Table 3. Frequency of lesions compared between the Aquinum and Ubrino samples. Sex (g) DJD periostitis Cranial pitting OA Trauma Male (R) 47% 45% 9% 28.5% Female (R) 50% 12.5% 0.0% 33.3% Male (I) 68% 41% 45.% 21% Female (I) 55% 20% 37% 58% 20.% Phalanges of the hand and feet showing cupping, resorption and fusion. This maybe one of the older examples of Leprosy in Italy & Europe, Mariotti et al., 2005 offers a case for a 4th-3rd cent. BC Celtic skeleton with lesions specific to leprosy. I = data from the Imperial Roman samples from the necropolis of Urbino, Italy Paine et al., 2009). R = Republic Romans from the site of Aquinum. The Urbino sample size is 71 adults. Table 1. Frequency of individuals showing skeletal lesions by sex and by Roman period. Sex Total (100) Republic (90) Imperial (10) Tomb 58 Republic (13) Male (51) 65% 62% 80% 100% Female (49) 53% 52% 60% Conclusions The Fisher’s exact test was employed to determine the difference in lesion frequencies by sex between Republic and Imperial Romans recovered from the Casilina and Urbino necropoli. Several lesion frequencies are significantly different at p = 0.01 for the Casilina and Urbino burials. There is less significant difference for Osteoarthritis p = 0.0996 DJD p = 0.0953 There are no differences in the frequency of lesions specific to periostitis. These results suggest that the health status for Romans changed over time resulting in an increase set of problems related to inter-personal violence and diet. Violence increased and the quality of food decreased over time. The general state of health in the Republic period of Rome appears to be better than the Imperial. This may reflect the difficulty in maintaining the Empire by the common people as they served in the military and provided resources to support its expansion and maintenance. As we suggested in Paine et al., (2009) despite the considerable advantage that the Roman Imperial culture offered its citizens, it came at a very high price that appears to be reflected in numerous and common ailments seen in the Imperial burials. Photo 1. A map of the necropolis site of Aquinum. Figure 1. Location of the necropolis of Aquinum. The purpose of the project was to examine each adult burial for skeletal lesions. To report the frequency of lesions by sex we first determined how many adults were available for examination and of those how many of them had skeletal elements available for analysis. Table 1. The number of males and females, and skeletal elements examined for lesions, Aquinum. Photo 9. An example of arthritic pitting on the articular surfaces. Photo 10. Fractured ribs. Trauma p = 0.001 Cranial pitting p = 0.001 Cranial pitting p = 0.0044 Females Males Cranium Orbital region Long bones Vertebral bones Joint surfaces Male (51) 38 11 43 40 42 Female (49) 30 8 41 29 37 Photo 2. Roman Tomb, Republic period. Photo 3. Tomb 58A-O, mass grave, from the Roman Republic period. References Facchini F., Rastelli E., & Brasil P. 2004. Cribra orbitalia and cribra cranii in Roman skeletal remains from the Ravenna area and Rimini (1-1V century AD). Internat. J. Osteoarchaeol. 14:125-136. Mann RW & Murphy S. 1990. Regional Atlas Of Bone Disease. Charles C Thomas Publishers. Springfield, IL. Manzi G, Salvadei L, Vienna A, and Passarello P. 1999. Discontinuity of life conditions at the transition from the Roman Imperial age and early Middle ages: Example from central Italy evaluated by pathological dental alveolar lesions. Amer. J. Hum. Bio 11:327-341. Mariotti V, Dutour O, Belcastro MG, Facchini F, BrasiliP. 2005. Probable early presence of leprosy in Europe in a Celtic Skeleton of the 4th-3rd century BC (Casalecchio di Reno, Bologna, Italy). Internat. J. Osteoarchaeol. 15:311-325. Paine RR, Mancinelli D, Ruggieri M, & Coppa A. 2007. Cranial trauma in Iron Age Samnite Agriculturists from Alfedena, Italy: Implications for biocultural and economic stress. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 132:48-58. Paine RR, Vargiu R, Signoretti C, Coppa. A. 2009. A health assessment for Imperial Roman Burials recovered from the Necropolis of San Donato and Bivio Ch, Urbino, Italy. Journal of Anthropological Sciences 86: Ricci R, Mancinelli D, Vargiu R, Cucina A, Santandrea E, Capelli A, and Catalano P. 1997. Pattern of porotic hyperostosis and quality of life in a II century A.D. farm near Rome. Rivista di Antropologia 75:117-128. Salvadei L., Ricci R., and Manzi G. 2001. Porotic hyperostosis as a maker of health and nutritional conditions during childhood: studies at the transition between Imperial Rome and early Middle Ages. Amer. J. Hum. Bio. 13.709-717. Soren D, Fenton T, & Birkey W. 1995. The late Roman infant cemetery near Lugnano in Teverina, Italy: Some implications. J Paleopathology 7:13-47. There are 8 males and 5 females in this tomb. 100% of them show skeletal lesions and 37.5% of the males show signs of trauma, 20% of the female show trauma defects. Photo 11. Typical single burial unit, Male, 30 years old, from the Republic period. Photo 12. Tomb 83, Republic period burial, female age 37-43 years, with burial offerings. Photo 4. Tomb 58A-O, mass grave.