Health in Romano-British Urban Communities: Reflections from the Cemeteries

This paper will discuss the evidence for the living environment, archaeological data, primary sources, and diet of the period with an attempt to link it with the evidence for health and disease in human remains from late Roman urban cemeteries. In particular, it will focus on non-adult health, adult stress indicators, infectious and metabolic diseases. This study was undertaken to test the following hypotheses – was living in Roman towns unhealthy? Can correlations be made between levels of health and the bioarchaeological material reflecting ‘living conditions’ from Romano-British urban sites? Does the infant sample reflect the health of the community?