Roman London provides a unique opportunity to study childhood health and care in a
Romano-British context as extensive excavations over the last three decades have uncovered substantial cemetery sites within and around the City, providing an extensive skeletal
collection for analysis. In order to address the research aims of this study (see Chapter 1), a large sample size that incorporated subadults and adults from sites across the entirety of Roman London was required. As the focus of the collaborative project with the Centre for Human Bioarchaeology (CHB) at the Museum of London was to investigate health and dietary patterns across Roman London, the reanalysis of such a large sample size was beyond the scope of this project. Therefore, this research employed the biological data recorded on the Wellcome Osteological Research Database (WORD).
The CHB was established and funded by the Wellcome Trust (2003-6) to record cemetery populations of more than 30 individuals in the Museum’s collections for the WORD project (Redfern and Bekvalac 2013). As archaeological excavations in London are developer-led, many smaller cemetery samples or single inhumations have also been uncovered, and since 2006, curators at the CHB have been recording these legacy sites from the 1970-1990s using WORD. As the CHB is part of the London Archaeological Archive and Research Centre (LAARC), which is responsible for curating all of the archaeological archives in the City and Greater London area, the CHB has also been entering data from skeletons which had previously not been recorded using WORD standards (e.g. Lant Street LTU03) (Redfern and Bekvalac 2013). Recently excavated skeletons have also been entered onto WORD because, until 2013, the commercial field unit, Museum of London Archaeology (MoLA), was part of the Museum group, and their osteology team was responsible for recording individuals from the northern and southern cemeteries of Roman London (i.e. Spitalfields Market, SRP98). The collaborative nature of this research has allowed access to all the Roman data on WORD recorded by the CHB and MoLA staff, some of which would not have been available otherwise. As such, the database provides a compilation of all of the currently available skeletal evidence for the town of Roman London.
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As part of the recording process, every skeleton entered onto WORD is analysed (or
reanalysed) by trained osteologists following the WORD human osteology method statement (Powers 2012a). The aforementioned statement is a set of standards devised to ensure the same up-to-date recording criteria were consistently used by all osteologists recording data on WORD. This procedure ensures consistency in the data collected by different osteologists, making it possible to compare information from multiple sites of different excavation date. Each individual skeleton is entered separately onto the database, identified by a site code and its context number. Dating evidence is also noted to allow data to be extracted by date period. Following the WORD human osteology statement (Powers 2012a), a skeletal and dental inventory is compiled, and age and sex estimations are conducted and recorded (see Section 5.2.2 for further description of the criteria used). A rigorous examination of the skeleton is then conducted to identify pathological conditions. In order to diagnose pathology, the WORD human osteology method statement (Powers 2012a) provides specific diagnostic criteria standards that must be applied for both the collection of data and diagnoses. The individual criteria for each of the pathologies studied in this thesis are detailed in section 5.2.3. Once identified, the pathology is recorded by disease code, with different pathological categories being assigned different code prefixes. For example, infectious disease codes begin with the prefix 2, with non-specific infection being assigned the code 21 and specific infections designated as 22. Further subdivisions allow for more specific diagnoses to be recorded, for example tuberculosis would be assigned the code 221. A full catalogue of codes is provided in Powers (2007).For pathology, descriptions are provided according to the appropriate
standards identified in the method statement. By cataloguing the data in this way it is possible to retrieve information at the individual or population level, as queries can be run to identify the number of individuals within a specific site or time period with a particular pathology. For this thesis, data from all available Roman individuals were extracted from the database at the individual level and recorded in Excel spreadsheets. The details of the data extracted are given in Sections 5.2.2 and 5.2.3.
The data available in WORD therefore provides:
An accessible database of all available Roman skeletal data from Roman London A sample size large enough to address the aims of the thesis and allow statistical
analyses of potential relationships
Comparable data compiled under modern recording standards by trained osteologists However, it is acknowledge that the use of data from WORD is subject to a number of
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The constraints of the database limit the amount of information provided for each pathology. For example, while a score is given for cribra orbitalia, information regarding the stage of healing is not given. The individual descriptions of pathologies are also limited, featuring less information than would have been recorded if primary research had been conducted, for example in descriptions of non-specific infection. Due to the limited amount of data available, the data collected is reliant on the
diagnoses of other individuals. While all analyses are conducted by trained osteologists, there is still a potential for under- or over-diagnosis of pathologies. Despite the use of a standard methodology to ensure comparability, the collection of
data by multiple individuals introduces potential unknown comparability biases. For example, in the assignment of individuals to age and sex categories, and the
identification of pathologies. However, the use of only trained osteologists for skeletal analyses mitigates against these issues as much as possible.
As a result, the large database available ensures a sufficient quantity of data is available to meet the research aims of the thesis. However, the data presented provides a broad overview of the presence and absence of the studied stress markers in the sample.
5.1.1 Criteria for Inclusion in the Sample
As all skeletal data for this study was to be drawn from existing analyses, to avoid
inconsistencies between site reports and ensure all data was accurate and comparable, only cemetery sites where osteological and palaeopathological information had been reanalysed and entered into the WORD database were included in this study. For example, the cemetery from Giltspur Street (WES89) had previously been recorded by Waldron in the late 1980’s but was re-examined by the WORD project, and therefore only WORD data were employed in this study. The only exceptions permitted were that of Drapers Garden (DGT06) and Trinity Street (TIY07). This was because the standards utilised for the skeletal analysis of these sites, conducted by Pre-Construct Archaeology (PCA), proved similar to those used by the Museum of London Group. PCA permitted access to their original skeletal database, allowing data comparable to WORD to be extracted.
In addition, in order for a site to be included in the sample it had to fulfil a further 3 criteria: 1) inhumation burials from a secure Roman context had to have been recovered from the
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2) the skeletal material had to be curated and accessible to ensure isotopic sampling could take place, and
3) mortuary data had to be available in either a published/pre-publication report or in an accessible archive.
This often meant that not all of the recorded burials at a site were included in the sample and the number available for study differed from that in the published reports (see Appendix 1 and 2 for further detail).
Following the aforementioned criteria, 39 sites excavated between 1980 and 2007, with a total population of 967 individuals, were selected to form the basis of the sample (Figure 5.1). An index of all the individual sites is given in Appendix 1.
The distribution of the overall and subadult sample between the four cemeteries of Roman London is given in Table 5.1. By far the largest contribution to the sample comes from the Eastern cemetery. The greater representation of individuals from this cemetery is the result of large-scale excavations that were undertaken in this area during the 1980’s-1990’s. The lower proportions of individuals in the remaining cemeteries is the result of a lack of large-scale investigation in these areas, though more recent excavations have begun to increase the number of individuals recovered from the northern (e.g. SRP98, BDC03, ENS03) and southern (e.g. LTU03, TIY07) cemeteries.
The dominance of the eastern cemetery, and that of the combined north and east (67.8%) over that of the south and west (30.9%), may have repercussions for the nature of the sample, particularly if each cemetery represents different sections of Roman London’s population. However, a lack of in-depth analyses into the different cemeteries means it is at present not possible to determine what sections of the population each of these cemeteries contained (Barber and Hall 2000: 117). In the eastern cemetery, which has been the focus of most investigation, researchers note the homogenous nature of the buried population, but concede that, without comparative data from the other cemetery populations, the identification of the representativeness of the Eastern cemetery is not possible (Barber and Bowsher 2000: 328; Barber and Hall 2000: 115-119). In the few comparative studies that have been conducted (Hall 1996; Barner and Hall 2000), no clear observable difference in the cemeteries is observed overall, all displaying a similar array of burial rites, a general absence of grave goods, and the underrepresentation of women and children. Therefore, while it is important to be aware of a potential bias in the sample, without further detailed analyses of the cemeteries, it is currently not possible to assess its overall impact on the sample population.
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Overall Sample Subadult Sample
Cemetery N % Cemetery N % North 264 27.3 North 72 25.6 South 145 15.0 South 50 17.8 East 392 40.5 East 104 37.0 West 154 15.9 West 45 16.0 Intramural 12 1.2 Intramural 10 3.6 Total 967 - Total 281 -
Table 5.1: Sample composition by cemetery