Tracing the history of Roman and medieval lifeways at multiple scales

Tracing the history of Roman and medieval lifeways at multiple scales

Carlo Cocozza, cocozza@gea.mpg.de

Postdoctoral researcher in Systems Archaeology

Department of archaeology, Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology, Kahlaische Straße 10, 07745, Jena, Germany.

Europe has been the stage for important historical transitions. The ancient Mediterranean world left an enduring legacy in Europe manifested in forms of social organization and cultural practices. This was succeeded by the medieval period, that observed the rise of Christianity, large population migrations, and the dispersal of political power. To understand what Europe is today we thus need to trace back in time what are the legacies of both these periods.

Here, I will discuss the contributions that archaeological science methods are making to our knowledge of the lifeways of Roman and Medieval of populations. This allows us to access a wide proportion of past populations which are often absent from ancient texts or traditional archaeological aims. In my research, I combined biomolecular methods, in particular stable isotope analysis, with all other sources of evidence and employed novel Bayesian methods to quantitatively reconstruct various aspects of individual human lifeways. These include diet, spatial mobility, infant feeding practices and chronology. These methods were applied at various scales, from site locations to wide regional expanses, to trace the development of human lifeways throughout Roman and Medieval period. Obtained results demonstrate the deep past legacies on what is the social and cultural life of modern-day European populations.