Rome if You Want To: How Skeletons Reveal Immigrants in the Empire

Next Wednesday, I'll be giving a talk at Davidson College. I'm excited to head over to Charlotte (IKEA trip!), to visit Davidson for the first time, and especially to meet up with my friend and colleague Hilary Becker, who organized the talk and generated interest in it from three different departments - classics, anthropology, and chemistry. From the Davidson campus events calendar:

Dr. Kristina Killgrove, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, will deliver a lecture entitled, "Rome If You Want To: How Skeletons Reveal Immigrants In The Empire," at 7:00 pm on Wednesday, January 26, 2011, Belk Visual Arts Center 117. A reception will follow the lecture which is sponsored by the Central Carolinas Society of the Archaeological Institute of America and the Davidson College Departments of Classics, Chemistry, and Anthropology.

Dr. Killgrove will discuss how throughout Roman history millions of people came to the capital city. Some voluntarily sought out new experiences, but many were brought by force. The lives of the vast majority of immigrants are basically unknown, since historical and epigraphic records tend towards the wealthy, literate elite. This talk details the relatively new technique of strontium and oxygen isotope analyses, carried out on over one hundred human skeletons recovered from two Imperial-era cemeteries in the Roman suburbium. Integrating isotope data with osteological and historical information can illuminate the lives of slaves and foreigners at Rome, adding valuable information about the ancient Romans.