Stable isotope data from the early Christian catacombs of ancient Rome: new insights into the dietary habits of Rome’s early Christians L.V. Rutgers a, * , M. van Strydonck b , M. Boudin b , C. van der Linde a a Department of History and Art History, Utrecht University, Drift 10, 3512 BS Utrecht, The Netherlands b Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage, Jubelpark 1, B 1000 Brussels, Belgium article info Article history: Received 21 August 2008 Received in revised form 8 December 2008 Accepted 18 December 2008 Keywords: Stable isotopes Diet Collagen Freshwater fish Roman Empire Rome Catacombs Burial Early Christianity Social history Italy Breastfeeding Freshwater reservoir effect abstract This study reports on the first attempt that determines the diet of a small but conceivably representative section of Rome’s early Christian community by means of d 13 C and d 15 N measurements on collagen extracted from twenty-two samples of human bone. Samples derive from the Liberian Region in the catacombs of St. Callixtus on the Appian Waydan area that has been radiocarbon dated to the period from the mid-3rd through early 5th century AD. Comparing our results to those produced for several other sites, we argue that this population’s typical diet included freshwater fish. We also briefly discuss breastfeeding and the freshwater reservoir effect, to then explore the dietary, art historical, and possible sociological ramifications of our results. Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Although first applied in the late 1970s (Van der Merwe and Vogel, 1977), stable isotope analysis did not become a major tool in the study of palaeodiet until the early 1990s (Schwarcz and Schoeninger, 1991; Katzenberg and Harrison, 1997). One particu- larly important reason why the investigation of stable isotope ratios impacts current work in food history so profoundly is that it allows one to determine the food intake of specific individuals or specific populations whose dietary habits would otherwise remain hidden. This explains why, in less than two decades, the study of stable carbon and nitrogen isotopes as tracers of foodstuffs has revolu- tionized our understanding, not just of the dietary habits of prehistoric populations worldwide (Drucker and Bocherens, 2004; Sponheimer et al., 2006; Homes Hogue and Melsheimer, 2008), but also of such diverse historic civilizations as the ancient Greeks (Keenleyside et al., 2006), the Romans (Prowse et al., 2004, 2007), the inhabitants of the Byzantine Empire (Bourbou and Richards, 2007) and a variety of Medieval populations (Polet and Katzenberg, 2003; Mu ¨ ldner and Richards, 2005, 2007a,b; Salamon et al., 2008). One historic group has remained beyond the purview of stable isotope analysis so far: Rome’s early Christians. There are two reasons why this is not surprising. First, much historical research into the origins of Christianity deals with what the first Christians did not eat as it continues to focus on one of the most outstanding societal shifts in Roman history, namely the rise of asceticismda severe form of renunciation that manifested itself particularly strongly in the areas of food and sex (Brown, 1988; Clark, 1999; McGowan, 1999). Secondly, early Christian archaeology, especially in Rome where the archaeological evidence is most plentiful, has been slow to adapt to the new possibilities offered by science-based archaeology, preferring a more traditional art historical and descriptive approach instead. As a result of these two emphases, we do not know whether Christianity made a difference in terms of what people normally ate. It is evident that a majority of early Christians did not practice an ascetic lifestyle. It is also clear that * Corresponding author. E-mail address: Leonard.Rutgers@let.uu.nl (L.V. Rutgers). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Archaeological Science journal homepage: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jas 0305-4403/$ – see front matter Ó 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jas.2008.12.015 Journal of Archaeological Science 36 (2009) 1127–1134