2.4 Food and bones: further evidence of ancient diet

Dr Rebecca Redfern from the Museum of London is an archaeologist who specialises in osteoarchaeology. In Video 3 she explains what can be learnt from bone evidence (including studying DNA and stable isotopes).

Using the example of the ‘Lant Street Teenager’, Dr Rebecca Redfern examines what the bones tell us about the origins and health of this fourth century CE girl. When was she born, and when did she come to London? How has her diet left traces on her bones? How healthy was she?

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Transcript: Video 3 Food and bones: further evidence of ancient diet

HELEN KING

So this is the Lant Street teenager. I’m so excited to see her at last. Tell me all about her. Where was she found? Who is she?

REBECCA REDFERN

Oh, well, she’s one of my favourite people. And she’s found in Southwark, so that’s the southern settlement of Roman London. So that’s the south bank of the river. And she dates to the third, fourth century. And she was interred in a normal cemetery with lots of other people. But hers is an absolutely unique burial within the cemetery, within London, and also within Britain. So she’s phenomenal.

So she was buried with an array of grave goods. So she had two glass vessels, either side of her head. At her hand, she had a clasped knife, so it was an ivory handle in the shape of a leopard. And then there was also a key on a chain. And at her feet we’ve got this very small bone carved inlay, so there was probably a box at her feet . So she’s absolutely phenomenal.

HELEN KING

So it’s a rich burial.

REBECCA REDFERN

Very rich, yeah. Yeah, particularly for London, yeah.

HELEN KING

How old was she when she died?

REBECCA REDFERN

Well, she’s 14. And we know this because the ends of her bones haven’t fused on. So this is one of her forearm bones. This is the epiphysis. So that’s the joint surface there. And that hasn’t fused on, so we know that she’s about 14 years old. We know that she’s female from the shape of her pelvis and various traits on her skull.

But normally we don’t sex adolescents. There’s a new method that allows us to do it. And luckily it matched our DNA evidence. So we were quite glad about that.

HELEN KING

So you’ve done DNA on her. What else have you done on her?

REBECCA REDFERN

Well, we also did isotopes on her to figure out where she came from and what she ate.

HELEN KING

So how does that work? Tell me about stable isotopes.

REBECCA REDFERN

OK. So very simply, the stable isotopes are captured from the food and water that people consume. And what happens is that those chemicals are used as the building blocks for the skeleton and the teeth. So in the dental enamel, locked in there, are the chemical signatures of the drinking water. So we look at oxygen, and we look at lead which is from the surrounding area. And those isotopes are particularly valuable alongside strontium, as well, at telling us where people came from.

Because if we use their first molar, this is forming during early childhood. It erupts about the age of seven. And if people keep it through to adulthood, we know that we can compare the geology of where they’re buried with the geological signature essentially captured there.

HELEN KING

So where does she come from?

REBECCA REDFERN

So we looked at the chemicals in her dental enamel. And that showed that she had grown up somewhere very warm, much warmer a climate than Britain. And so we think that she’s grown up in the southern Mediterranean. So that’s kind of the Mediterranean basin and kind of like the northern coast of Africa, as well. So we can’t tie it down any more than that.

But what is very, very interesting is that we also took a fragment of one of her rib bones, so one of her rib bones. We took a bit of the bone there. And we looked at the carbon and nitrogen, which tells us about diet.

HELEN KING

So we know what she ate.

REBECCA REDFERN

So we know what she ate. And she was eating a local dietary pattern. So she’s eating a London pattern of diet in the Roman period.

HELEN KING

So why? Why did she move to London?

REBECCA REDFERN

Well, unfortunately there is no inscription evidence associated with her. There there’s no tombstone for her at all. So that opens up multiple avenues of possibilities.

We know that there are troops from North Africa who were stationed in Britain. So it may well be that she was associated with the military community. Because what’s interesting is the DNA has told us that she has blue eyes.

HELEN KING

Wow. We know that.

REBECCA REDFERN

Yeah. I know. I know. It’s absolutely phenomenal. Unfortunately, it didn’t work so well on her hair colour. So they couldn’t decide whether it was blond or brown. We looked to her maternal DNA, and that’s showing us that the maternal DNA is European. So her mum is European. And that person has also then migrated.

She could have been a slave, a very high-- you know, beloved slave. She could have been part of like a merchant or trading family. I mean, the possibilities--

HELEN KING

Yes, for London. There’s lots of possibilities. Was she healthy?

REBECCA REDFERN

She had experienced rickets as a child and had recovered. We’ve got slight bowing of her forearm bones here. And then her femora show slight anterior curving, as well.

HELEN KING

Curving, yes. They’re curving up.

REBECCA REDFERN

So it’s curving up and away. But it’s quite subtle. So it’s showing us that she may not have had it very severely as a child. She might have had a very mild case and then recovered.

And some of the most interesting information about her health is captured on her teeth. So we can see here that the crowns of her incisors and on her molars here, they have a very crimped appearance here. There’s very little dental enamel present. And these are enamel hypoplastic defects.

HELEN KING

What does that mean?

REBECCA REDFERN

So these are defects that are created when the tooth is developing during younger childhood. So when she’s got her milk teeth in, these teeth are being formed. And what happens is that you have a disturbance in that, which is caused by poor nutrition, poor health. So what happens is that the enamel stops being laid down.

HELEN KING

So she wasn’t that healthy then?

REBECCA REDFERN

Well, absolutely, because she died when she was 14 years old. So the teeth are telling us that she had a compromised childhood and the fact that it must have been something very fast acting because she hasn’t created a bone response to any disease. We didn’t pick up any diseases through the DNA analysis of the viral and bacterial things, which pick up diseases like the Black Death, tuberculosis, and things like that. We didn’t find anything at all, so it must have been fairly fast acting.

End transcript: Video 3 Food and bones: further evidence of ancient diet

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