The Bio-cultural Impacts of State Expansionism: Provincial Roman Political Economy and Human Remains at Viminacium, Serbia (Research Brief)

It seeks insight to social processes at work among the living population of this ancient provincial capital through osteological study of the remains from a massive necropolis dating primarily from the 1st through the 5th century AD. Using a combination of mortuary, forensic, biomedical and paleodemographic analyses, questions regarding the bio-cultural effects of changes in sociopolitical and economic organization and the physiological impacts of Roman militarism and imperial policy are being addressed. Analysis of the mortuary contexts will allow connection of physiological patterns in morphology, pathology, and trauma to particular socioeconomic and demographic aspects of the community of Viminacium.

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Charles Scott Speal, of the State University of New York at Albany, was a 2004-05 Individual Advanced Research Opportunities (IARO) fellow.