Most of the information about Rome and Roman society comes from the 1.5% who had wealth, power, and literacy. The rest, the vast majority of citizens, we know next to nothing about. But we have their skeletons. Most were buried anonymously outside the city, without epitaphs and often without grave goods to tell us who they were or what they did. Their skeletons are as anonymous in death as in life. There are between 10,000 and 20,000 plebeian skeletons languishing in Italian warehouses, without funding or interest in investigating them.
Now, Kristina Killgrove, an archaeologist from Vanderbilt University, wants to tell their story by sequencing their DNA, and she is raising donations to do it. Since 2007, Killgrove has been studying 200 skeletons recovered from lower-class graves excavated outside Rome’s city walls. She looks at the chemical isotopes from their water, food and environment into their bones and teeth. Using modern science, she can reconstruct to a degree what they ate, where they came from, and much more. For instance, strontium and oxygen isotope levels revealed that a third of them had immigrated to Rome after their childhood, and thereafter lived similar lives to Roman-born people. To learn more about her research, and maybe donate to her project, check out Kristina’s blog, or her website Roman DNA Project
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