Milliary Diet- Archaeological Perspective Help

[Amethyst_ice]

Hello all,

Enjoying lurking and reading as always. My 3rd year presentation assessment is looming near & sadly i'm not getting much help from the historian peers.

its 15 minutes which is hard to condense and I was hoping for some guidence and structure from you lovely lot.

I was hoping to loook at archaeological (rather than historical evidence for military diet in British forts. As its 15 minutes I'm unsure what "question" to be asking and if I should pick case studies etc. I've been reading a few articles but still very much unsure how to structure it.

The ovens are a nice piece of evidence but I havn't found any residue analysis to use. Then the obvious of animal bones and charred plant remains.

I'd be greatful for any direction and input :-D

x

[PhilusEstilius]

Natalia.
I do have a piece of a tooth from a wild boar that I found field walking near Hadrian's Wall, therefore I think we can safely say that Pork was on the menue for the troops this particular tooth has been cut by a saw so I would imagine the meat was also used.
Then having done much excavation back in the 70s it became evident that many animal bones and deer horn was being found that might suggest that meat was indeed a major part of the soldiers diet.
However for armies that are on the march or moving around a lot we can think of Veg' and a corn diet, but then even Rice being grown at places such as the terraces at Housesteads fort on the Wall so that would have been easy to carry on the march.

[D B Campbell]

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.

[richard robinson]

I cannot be of direct help re any particular archaeology but my favourite two Roman dietry facts are based (I believe) on midden heap evidence from UK- 1) is prolific boar/pig bones and 2) oyster shells- which someone claimed was that oyster bars were the fish and chips of the Roman world.

apart from mr Cambells excellent links google searches including "field reports" would be appropriate??

Good luck
Richard

[Vindex]

Roy Davies has a short chapter on military diet in his book Service In The Roman Army. It has at least three tables in it which support artefact/finds analysis from various forts. There are also letter extracts included in this.

And then there are the Vindolanda tablets...

[D B Campbell]

Roy Davies has a short chapter on military diet in his book Service In The Roman Army.

Certainly a worthy starting-point, but remember that it was published in 1971. You probably need to read Anthony King's "Animal bones and the dietary identity of military and civilian groups in Roman Britain, Germany and Gaul", in: T.F.C. Blagg & A.C. King (eds.), Military and Civilian in Roman Britain (BAR #136, Oxford, 1984), pp. 187-217, for the role of meat in the ancient diet.

[Vindex]

Even that's almost 30 years old! Is there really nothing more recent?

Best get Time Team on to it :wink: Or even better...Rory McGrath could do a second series and call it the Pub Grub Dig :mrgreen:


(and JUST in case anyone is in any doubt, there are BUCKETS of sarcasm attached to this :twisted: )

[Amethyst_ice]

Roy Davies has a short chapter on military diet in his book Service In The Roman Army.

Certainly a worthy starting-point, but remember that it was published in 1971. You probably need to read Anthony King's "Animal bones and the dietary identity of military and civilian groups in Roman Britain, Germany and Gaul", in: T.F.C. Blagg & A.C. King (eds.), Military and Civilian in Roman Britain (BAR #136, Oxford, 1984), pp. 187-217, for the role of meat in the ancient diet.

Ah yes I did have that suggested by my tutor (Prof simon esmonde cleary) but he brought up that it was old..he suggested Kings but I misplaced the notes suggestion so thank you very much for that, I knew it was something like that.

I know there are the Vindolanda tablets but I wanted to keep away from documentary approaches so to speak as most the others in my group are using the tablets hence me wanting to approach it from an archaeological perspective.

[Amethyst_ice]

Even that's almost 30 years old! Is there really nothing more recent?

Best get Time Team on to it :wink: Or even better...Rory McGrath could do a second series and call it the Pub Grub Dig :mrgreen:


(and JUST in case anyone is in any doubt, there are BUCKETS of sarcasm attached to this :twisted: )

sarcasm always welcome during exam time hehe :mrgreen:

[Vindex]

Just because Davies' article is "old" doesn't necessarily mean it's wrong though, does it? And like I said the more "recent" article is 28 years young...so not exactly "cutting edge" either. :roll:

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

I wonder if they had the equivalent to beef jerky...dried meats...
I'm sure they had dried fish, much like is found throughout the far east today
(or at least when I lived there as a child)

[D B Campbell]

Even that's almost 30 years old! Is there really nothing more recent?

Sad, isn't it?!

Just because Davies' article is "old" doesn't necessarily mean it's wrong though, does it?

Absolutely not. In fact, it's pretty much spot on the money. But King gives a more detailed synthesis of the evidence for meat-eating, on military and civilian sites, as a useful comparison. I'm not aware of a more recent synthesis, although (as you'd expect) there must be much more material by now.

[Epictetus]

I'm not aware of a more recent synthesis, although (as you'd expect) there must be much more material by now.

There were some 44,000 hits on Google Scholar for "roman soldier diet". Perhaps some patient sifting could find other useful studies.

[D B Campbell]

Perhaps some patient sifting could find other useful studies.

I have not seen S. Stallibrass & R. Thomas, Feeding the Roman army: the archaeology of production and supply in NW Europe (Oxbow, 2008), which looks as if it might be relevant.

[Vindex]

Perhaps some patient sifting could find other useful studies.

I have not seen S. Stallibrass & R. Thomas, Feeding the Roman army: the archaeology of production and supply in NW Europe (Oxbow, 2008), which looks as if it might be relevant.

Well remembered! I have seen this but sadly in my rather blinkered way (pardon the pun) I only concentrated on the chapter on the role of equids in the supply of the army by Cluny Johnstone.

Mainly covers their role in logistics but I'm sure their meat found it's way into the food chain now and again. But the majority of the papers cover logistics rather than the commodities themselves.

One of my work colleagues has come up with an ingenious suggestion for oyster shells with holes bored in them which crop up from time to time in Roman contexts; she thinks they could be simple tags for barrels to indicate the contents rather than breaking the seal to check (even salt water taints and oysters go off as I understand it). Rather neat I thought.