Mena: The original Roman were a Black and Brown people. The majority of Rome 40% slaves were White Germans and Eastern barbarians.
Original Black Roman
Brown and Black Roman
Brown Roman
Brown Roman
Brown Roman
Brown Roman
40% white Roman slaves
ho walked the roads to Rome? Isotopes provide clues Archaeologists analyzed isotopes in molars to begin personalizing the story of Rome's hundreds of thousands of immigrants. Some came willingly, others did not.
Who really lived in ancient Rome?
During the first few centuries AD, the city may have had 1 million residents: a huge size for an ancient city, but only a sliver of the empire's almost 60 million residents, connected across diverse cultures and languages.
But as archaeologists Kristina Killgrove and Janet Montgomery indicate in the title of their newest study, "All Roads Lead to Rome," migrants from all corners of the Empire made their way to the capital – some willingly, others as slaves.
Recommended:Are you scientifically literate? Take our quiz Most of what we know about daily life in Rome is about wealthy men. But nearly 40 percent of the city was enslaved, although slavery looked quite different than it did in antebellum America, and another 5 percent were migrants.
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PHOTOS OF THE DAY Photos of the day 02/10 To learn more about these Roman residents, the two archaeologists studied the isotopes in the tooth enamel of dozens of skeletons buried just outside the city, at the Casal Bertone and Castellaccio Europarco necropolises, "cities of the dead."
Both necropolises were used until the 2nd century AD, primarily by lower-class Romans. Most graves have no decoration, markers, or objects buried with the dead, making it difficult to assess whether the skeletons belonged to slaves or citizens. Most of the teeth the team analyzed came from men up to the age of 50, according to their study, which was published Feb. 10 in PLOS ONE.
To determine the men's origins, the researchers analyzed strontium, oxygen, and carbon isotopes in their tooth enamel for clues into the food and water they consumed.
Oxygen isotopes, for instance, can indicate the source of water human beings drank from while their tissues formed.
Recommended: Howard Carter: 6 of his first moments in the tomb of King Tut This was the first time researchers have applied the method to Imperial Roman skeletons.
Four of the individuals were born outside Rome, concluded Dr. Killgrove and Dr. Montgomery: three male adults, including one over age 50, and a teen between 11 and 15. Another four showed signs of possible migration: two children under 12, a teen boy, and an older teenage girl. The young children likely came to Rome between age four, when molar crowns finish forming, and their deaths at around age 10.
Where did they come from?
Although the researchers aren't certain, the likely answer is, "All over."
Oxygen isotopes help the archaeologists pinpoint longitude, while strontium isotopes reveal altitude: old mountains, like the Alps, show higher levels of 87-neutron strontium (87Sr) than younger rock, like volcanic areas of Italy. The ratio of 87Sr to 86Sr gets lower and lower as you travel from Italy's knee to its toe, in other words.
Two of the migrants came from old-mountain areas like the Alps or islands in the Tyrrhenian Sea, while a third apparently came from Italy's Apennine mountains. The last immigrant may have been born in Northern Africa, or else he just ate a lot of grain imported from there, as was common in Rome.
No matter where they came from, though, once they got to the imperial city, these immigrants ate like other Romans, say the researchers, based on comparisons between the carbon isotopes in their teeth to those in their bones: a diet heavy in wheat and beans, meat and fish. The diet change underscores a critical point: when in Rome (or its empire), you really did do as the Romans did.
"Rome was the world's most successful multiethnic state until our own – and history's longest lasting one, bar none," wrote Cullen Murphy for the Los Angeles Times in 2007, comparing ancient Rome's attitudes about immigration with modern American ones. "You would see something remarkably uniform from the Atlantic to the Euphrates, from Britain to North Africa," thanks to policies and public values "that rapidly turned outsiders into insiders" – sometimes brutally.
Rome was even founded by an "outsider," according to one classic tale: defeated Trojan hero Aeneas finally found welcome in Rome after years of wandering.
The history of Rome's "outsiders," as defined by birthplace and social class, has been largely forgotten, Killgrove and Montgomery argue, but new research blending historical accounts, bioarchaeology, and anthropology can help uncover what their lives were like in one of the world's most complex cities for specific groups and individuals. That approach, they argue, could help "reveal the role that migrants had in shaping the history, culture, and geography of the Roman Empire."
Posts: 5374 | From: sepedat/sirius | Registered: Jul 2012
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Years ago there was a (white) Dutch author who stated the same.
quote: Migration within the Roman Empire occurred at multiple scales and was engaged in both voluntarily and involuntarily. Because of the lengthy tradition of classical studies, bioarchaeological analyses must be fully contextualized within the bounds of history, material culture, and epigraphy. In order to assess migration to Rome within an updated contextual framework, strontium isotope analysis was performed on 105 individuals from two cemeteries associated with Imperial Rome—Casal Bertone and Castellaccio Europarco—and oxygen and carbon isotope analyses were performed on a subset of 55 individuals. Statistical analysis and comparisons with expected local ranges found several outliers who likely immigrated to Rome from elsewhere. Demographics of the immigrants show men and children migrated, and a comparison of carbon isotopes from teeth and bone samples suggests the immigrants may have significantly changed their diet. These data represent the first physical evidence of individual migrants to Imperial Rome. This case study demonstrates the importance of employing bioarchaeology to generate a deeper understanding of a complex ancient urban center.
--Killgrove K, Montgomery J (2016) All Roads Lead to Rome: Exploring Human Migration to the Eternal City through Biochemistry of Skeletons from Two Imperial-Era Cemeteries (1st-3rd c AD). PLoS ONE 11(2): e0147585. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0147585
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