04-12-2012, 05:13 PM
Quote:I was hoping to loook at archaeological (rather than historical evidence for military diet in British forts. ... The ovens are a nice piece of evidence but I havn't found any residue analysis to use.Ovens sound like a sensible place to look, but you really need water-logged remains, for evidence of diet to survive.
There's a good starting point here: http://archaeobotany.dept.shef.ac.uk/, with a good reading list.
You'll also want to refer to the famous Bearsden fort latrine deposit: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/art...0383900481
And there's a similar study of an auxiliary centurion's "waste" from the fort at Alphen aan den Rijn: http://members.casema.nl/arp/PPP73.pdf (PDF)
It would be interesting to compare these -- the Bearsden material presumably reflects the diet of the ordinary soldiers, while the Alphen deposit is specific to one of their centurions.
