Echoes from the past: Bioarchaeological insights into the burial grounds of Portus Romae

Abstract

Since its establishment, Portus Romae represented a hub for the trade of goods to and from Rome. Similarly, commercial activities should have pushed the intermingling of people and cultures. However, the political disruption following the starting decline of the Empire led to trade shrinkage, with the silting out of a portion of the basin in the 5th century CE and the building of defensive walls. 14 burials were discovered in the Antemurale area in the southwestern part of the port zone, around the Late Antique defensive structures. The bioarchaeological data from these burials herein presented contributes to broadening knowledge about the biological and cultural characteristics of people living at the chronological edge of the Roman Empire. The osteological analysis showed that main part of the sample pertains to skeletally immature individuals, who were impacted by the harsh lifestyle experienced by the community, whose subsistence strategy was grounded on local and autarchic supply. The isotopic characterization of the enamel and the individuals’ genomic makeup suggest that people from Antemurale could be considered more similar to the Italian population of the Imperial Age and Late Antiquity than to the invading groups from Central Europe. Thus, the studied group of individuals were not biologically conditioned by the arrival of foreign armies to the outskirts of Rome in the previous centuries.