American Journal of Archaeology 116 (2012) 253–76 253 ARTICLE Exploring Health and Social Well-Being in Late Roman Britain: An Intercemetery Approach MARTIN PITTS AND REBECCA GRIFFIN Abstract This article outlines a new method for comparing proxy data for the health and well-being of Late Roman popu- lations through the statistical analysis of skeletal remains and material culture. A multistage statistical approach is applied to a sample of published Late Romano-British cemeteries. A battery of health indicators are compared using multidimensional scaling, and patterns in the provi- sion of grave inclusions are analyzed using the Gini coef- ficient of inequality. The results of these analyses yield two principal findings. First, patterns are often strongly condi- tioned by settlement type, with individuals in cemeteries from urban locations exhibiting better health than their nonurban counterparts, contrary to historical models stressing the disadvantages of urban environments. Sec- ond, urban cemeteries feature both higher levels of grave furnishings and greater equality in their intracemetery distributions than nonurban cemeteries. Such findings suggest entrenched differences in the quality of living conditions and social relations between urban and rural communities in Late Roman Britain, potentially mirroring the observed modern relationship between high levels of social inequality and poor health.* introduction In recent decades, the potential of osteoarchaeolog- ical studies of human skeletal remains to provide new insights into ancient society has grown enormously. The findings relate to a plethora of topics, including health, demography, migration, identity, and diet. However, at present, most studies of human skeletal material in the Classical period have been concerned with individual cemeteries. 1 Although the informa- tion gained from individual cemetery reports can be invaluable for understanding local contexts, the wider potential of human osteoarchaeology cannot be real- ized without broader synthesis. While larger synthetic studies are clearly desirable, there are often significant obstacles for comparing osteoarchaeological data at a regional or provincial level, especially if such data are pushed to answer specific research questions. Most of these obstacles are of a practical nature, re- lating to small sample sizes, problems of taphonomy and preservation, the absence of contextual data, and the inconsistent use of techniques and identification methods by different specialists. 2 These problems are often exacerbated by a lack of communication and engagement between cultural archaeologists and os- teoarchaeologists, so the need for broader synthesis is not always fully apparent to either group. 3 This article analyzes osteoarchaeological evidence from a large area in Late Roman Britain to explore the potential research benefits of broader compara- tive analysis. A further aim is to integrate the osteo- archaeological data with information relating to the deposition of artifactual evidence in mortuary contexts. Late Roman Britain (ca. 250–410 C.E.) represents an ideal study area coinciding with a general shift in burial practice from cremation to inhumation and featuring a large corpus of published cemetery excavations with detailed accounts of artifactual evidence and patho- logical studies of human remains. While recent stud- ies are beginning to generate an overview of health patterns across the province and individual regions, 4 little research directly integrating the analysis of hu- man remains with that of Late Romano-British material culture has been conducted beyond studies within in- * We are indebted to Christopher Knüsel (Department of Archaeology, University of Exeter) and Elena Isayev (Depart- ment of Classics and Ancient History, University of Exeter) for their comments on the drafts. We thank Danny Dorling (De- partment of Geography, University of Sheffield) for introduc- ing us to literature on inequality and health. Any errors and omissions remain our own. Figures are by Pitts and Griffin un- less otherwise noted. 1 MacKinnon 2007. 2 MacKinnon 2007, 485–86. 3 MacKinnon 2007, 498. 4 Roberts and Cox (2003) provide a wide-ranging overview of patterns of health in Britain for all periods. See Redfern (2008) for a more detailed consideration of part of southwest Britain in the Roman period. This content downloaded from 144.173.232.47 on Mon, 12 Jan 2015 05:01:23 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions