The Body in the Ditch: Alternative Funerary Practices on the Northern Frontier of the Roman Empire?

Buck, Trudi; Greene, Elizabeth M.; Meyer, Alexander; Barlow, Victoria; Graham, Eleanor

doi:10.1017/s0068113x1900014x

The Body in the Ditch: Alternative Funerary Practices on the Northern Frontier of the Roman Empire?

Buck, Trudi; Greene, Elizabeth M.; Meyer, Alexander; Barlow, Victoria; Graham, Eleanor

Authors

Dr Trudi Buck t.j.buck@durham.ac.uk
Associate Professor

Elizabeth M. Greene

Alexander Meyer

Victoria Barlow

Eleanor Graham

Abstract

Disarticulated human remains were recovered from a first-century fort ditch at Vindolanda on the north-west frontier of the Roman Empire. Ancient DNA analysis revealed the skeleton to be that of a male individual and forensic taphonomic analysis suggested a primary deposition of the body in a waterlogged environment with no obvious evidence of formal burial. Occurrences of disarticulated human remains outside a cemetery context are often overlooked in Roman bioarchaeology. This discovery adds to the growing body of literature regarding alternative funerary practice in the Empire, highlighting that the concept of burial and disposal of the dead is more complex than ancient historical sources suggest. Details of the DNA analysis are provided in the Supplementary Material available at https://doi.org/10.1017/S0068113X1900014X.

Citation

Buck, T., Greene, E. M., Meyer, A., Barlow, V., & Graham, E. (2019). The Body in the Ditch: Alternative Funerary Practices on the Northern Frontier of the Roman Empire?. Britannia: A Journal of Romano-British and Kindred Studies, 50, 203-224. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0068113x1900014x

Journal Article Type	Article
Online Publication Date	May 6, 2019
Publication Date	Nov 30, 2019
Deposit Date	Nov 5, 2019
Publicly Available Date	Nov 14, 2019
Journal	Britannia
Print ISSN	0068-113X
Electronic ISSN	1753-5352
Publisher	Cambridge University Press
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	50
Pages	203-224
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1017/s0068113x1900014x
Related Public URLs	http://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/39380/

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Copyright Statement
This article has been published in a revised form in Britannia http://doi.org/10.1017/S0068113X1900014X. This version is published under a Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND. No commercial re-distribution or re-use allowed. Derivative works cannot be distributed. © The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies.