Roman Bioarchaeology Carnival LXXIX
When I first started writing the Roman Bioarchaeology Carnival, I posted every two weeks. Then dropped down to every month because I was busy. And now it seems I'm dropping down to every two months. So it goes. Without further ado, here's the news I collected over January and February, including news stories that I wrote and a few of the news stories that feature my own research!
January
February
January
- 9 January - Spectacular Roman Finds Uncovered at Site of New Council HQ in Carlisle (News and Star). The cremation graves date to the 1st-2nd c AD, but the link here only has images of the artifacts.
Roman skulls from London's "Big Dig"
- 9 January - Infanticide in the Archaeological Record: Sense or Sensationalism (Childhood Bioarchaeology). Bioarchaeologist Sian Halcrow has a new blog, and in this post she mentions the Yewden Villa site in England, which some have held up as evidence of Roman infanticide (spoiler alert: not infanticide).
- 12 January - London's Big Dig Reveals Amazing Layers of History (National Geographic). Plenty of Roman-era stuff found and highlighted in this summary piece.
- 12 January - The Changing Burial Rites in pre-Roman Central Apulian Region (Past Horizons). Pre-Roman, sure, but some great info on the Greek influence on burial traditions here.
- 19 January - DNA Confirms Headless Roman-Era 'Gladiator' Not from Britain - And Maybe Not a Gladiator (Forbes). Here I cover a very interesting DNA study of 7 "headless Romans" from York. 6 seem to have been local, while 1 was from somewhere else, possibly the Near East.
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One of the "headless Roman gladiators" from York |
- 4 February - No, That's Not a Laptop on an Ancient Greek Grave Marker (Forbes). You'd be surprised what actually needs to be said these days...
- 6 February - Ecco le foto della scoperta di Baratti (Qui News Val di Cornia). Some very cool photos from what appears to be a rescue excavation of Villanovan period tombs in Tuscany.
- 10 February - Teeth and Bones from Ancient Rome Hold Clues to Migration and Slavery (mental_floss). I wrote this based on my own research, but it was also covered by a number of other outlets, including LiveScience and Discovery News.
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Multiple burial from Azerbaijan |
- 12 February - Visiting a Couple Locked in an 1,800-year-old Embrace (National Geographic). This multiple burial in Azerbaijan, at a site called Old Galaba along the Silk Road, involves two people buried at the same time. Of course, since this was covered near Valentine's Day, they are a couple and are embracing. :-P
- 14 February - St. Valentine's Skull (Atlas Obscura). This saint was martyred in 273 AD on, of course, February 14. While this skull is supposedly that of the saint, there is plenty of doubt.
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Purported skull of St. Valentine |
- 16 February - Archaeologists Discover Late Roman Graves at Ancient Thracian Tomb Ostrusha Near Bulgaria's Kazanlak (Archaeology in Bulgaria). Two of the graves were inhumations, while the third appears to have been a cremation. The graves date to the second half of the 4th century AD.
- 18 February - Ancient Roman Lifestyles of the Poor and Infamous (Forbes). I wrote this piece to give individual life context to each of the four immigrants I found in the research published this month in PLOS. So if you want to know more about what their lives were like and the injuries they had, check this out.
- 26 February - Kristina Killgrove: Exploring Human Migration through Biochemistry (ScienceVideos.org) In which I discuss my recent PLOS paper on video with some awesome Brits.
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Upper jaw of an immigrant to Imperial Rome (Credit: K. Killgrove) |
As always, if you want to stay on top of skeletal news from the Roman world, and internationally, follow my Powered by Osteons page on Facebook!
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