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This study used dietary data obtained through macroscopic and stable isotope analysis to explore the influence of the local micro-ecology, social status, sex, and/or age on the dietary choices of the inhabitants of two distinct but contemporaneous communities of ‘commoners’ in Roman Macedonia. The palaeopathological results for Pontokomi-Vrysi suggest a resilient community, relying for its subsistence on agriculture, with less strictly defined gender-based social roles when it comes to consumption and more differentiated when it comes to labor, possibly on the basis of physical strength and/or societal prescriptions. In addition, the isotopic results for Pontokomi-Vrysi and Nea Kerdylia-Strovolos show important inter-site dietary differences but no sex and age intra-community differences. These results support a C3 plant-based diet for both communities with the protein content, however, deriving from the consumption of different in their isotopic values domestic plants and animals. This difference is due to region-specific environmental parameters and anthropogenic disturbances practiced within the agro-pastoral economic spectrum characterizing the two communities, influenced, in their turn, by each region’s micro-ecological features. The isotopic results also complement the ones of the oral health study conducted for the Pontokomi-Vrysi assemblage, supporting the absence of age- or gender-based food hierarchies in the household domain of Roman ‘commoners’. Despite limitations, this study shows the potential bioarchaeology holds to elucidate aspects of the social history of the ‘common’ people of the past and enhanced our understanding of the dynamics that gave to the socio-cultural map of Macedonia its particular ‘color’ after its incorporation into the Roman Empire.

Pronkjewails in distant places: Mortuary studies in the eastern Mediterranean by the GIA. The Greek Archaeology research group of the GIA specializes in mortuary archaeology, studying sites in the eastern Mediterranean and Middle East that date from the Bronze Age through to the Late Roman period. Our methodology includes theoretical approaches; cemetery excavations; the analysis of legacy data; studies of grave architecture, tombstones and grave goods; osteological analyses; digitization of datasets and digital applications; and DNA analysis, as well as isotopic and biomolecular studies, and we are focused on performing integrated studies with thorough contextual analyses. Our central question is how people dealt with death and what their funerary remains tell us about their lives and their world. Together with our local and international network of researchers and laboratories, our staff and students aim to perform innovative research, reach out to the public, and provide diverse perspectives on life and death in the ancient eastern Mediterranean.