The Roman city and military camp of Viminacium is situated between the
villages of Stari Kostolac and Drmno, 12 kilometres north-east of Pozarevac,
close to the confluence of the Mlava and the ...Danube. During its history, it
became the biggest urban settlement and the capital of the province of Upper
Moesia (Moesia Superior), later First Moesia (Moesia Prima). In one of the
necropoles of Viminacium, Pecine, in grave No. 5785, skeletal remains of a
juvenile male individual were discovered. The burial took place in Late
Antiquity. Anthropological analyses revealed a fracture of the right femur
followed by myositis ossificans traumatica. The trauma to the bone can damage
the overlying muscle and, occasionally, the muscle tissue will respond to the
trauma by producing bone directly in the muscle tissue itself. This condition
is known as myositis ossificans traumafica (post-traumatic myositis
ossificans or myositis ossificans circumscripta) and is most likely to occur
in response to trauma in young male individuals, and in the femoral (the
quadriceps muscles) or humeral region (brachium muscles).
The paper presents the case of the pregnant woman discovered at the medieval
necropolis of ?Preko Slatine? in Omoljica, a village near Pancevo. The
necropolis is dated to the period of the 12th-13th ...century AD. It deals with
a woman aged 25-30 (probably around 28 years old) in the advanced stages of
pregnancy, discovered in grave No. 13. This paper presents the possible
conditions that led to the death of this woman, but also the problems faced
by anthropologists when they attempt to resolve individual cases like this.
In paleodemographic research, the mortality rate of pregnant woman is an
important element of a population?s progress. Pregnant woman mortality is
considered an adequate criterion for the social and sanitation conditions of
a community and a sensitive indicator of health care and, sometimes, the
skill level possessed by midwives or doctors.
Health status of children in ancient Sirmium Miladinovic-Radmilovic, Natasa; Dragana, Vulovic; Djukic, Ksenija
Starinar (Beograd),
2016, Volume:
2016, Issue:
66
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
This paper presents diseases which directly leave traces on osteological
material (enamel hypoplasia, caries, traumatic conditions, haematological
disorders, metabolic diseases and middle ear ...inflammation) and diseases that
leave no visible marks on bones, and may indeed be the direct cause of death
of children in ancient Sirmium. In paleodemographic research, child mortality
rate is an important element of a population?s progress. Child mortality is
considered an adequate criterion for the social and sanitation conditions of
a community and a sensitive indicator of inadequate nutrition.
The necropolises of the Roman fortification and settlement Timacum Minus, in
the village of Ravna, near Knjazevac, were partially explored by systematical
and rescue archaeological excavations. The ...most extensively explored was the
part of the Late Roman necropolis on the eastern slope of the Slog hill,
about 400m west of the fortification, where 80 graves from this period have
been investigated. The analysis of the human osteological material, and the
archaeological finds from the aforementioned necropolis, confirmed 17
military graves, containing adult male individuals with traces of injuries,
stress markers and pathological changes, characteristic of a military
population, as well as military equipment and weapons. At the time of the
formation of the Late Roman necropolis at the site of Slog, during the second
half of the 4th and the first half of the 5th century, the garrison of the
Timacum Minus fortification consisted of an equestrian unit of
pseudocomitatenses Timacenses, a part of the auxiliary formation that secured
the forts and roads in the Timok region. Among the graves from the three
phases of the Late Roman necropolis, similarities as well as certain
differences are apparent, indicating changes in the structure of the civilian
and military population of Timacum Minus.
The direct reason for writing this paper was the new find of skeletons in the
medieval necropolis (10th-12th century) discovered as far back 1968 at the
Site No. 37 in Sremska Mitrovica (Sirmium). ...Institute for the protection of
cultural monuments in Sremska Mitrovica undertook protective archaeological
excavations in the eastern part of the site in 2010, discovering 29
skeletons. Since that archaeological analysis of Belo Brdo communities is
still in its infancy and considering that there is not a sufficiently big
sample for a more precise monitoring of this population?s inner dynamics, it
is considered useful to present results gained by studying these skeletons on
Site No. 37. Although the results in many ways match the results gained up
until now, there are some paleopathological changes that so far, have not
appeared and for which we had no direct confirmation in the osteological
material. One of these paleopathological changes is certainly syphilis.
The rise and fall of the Roman Empire was a socio-political process with enormous ramifications for human history. The Middle Danube was a crucial frontier and a crossroads for population and ...cultural movement. Here, we present genome-wide data from 136 Balkan individuals dated to the 1st millennium CE. Despite extensive militarization and cultural influence, we find little ancestry contribution from peoples of Italic descent. However, we trace a large-scale influx of people of Anatolian ancestry during the Imperial period. Between ∼250 and 550 CE, we detect migrants with ancestry from Central/Northern Europe and the Steppe, confirming that “barbarian” migrations were propelled by ethnically diverse confederations. Following the end of Roman control, we detect the large-scale arrival of individuals who were genetically similar to modern Eastern European Slavic-speaking populations, who contributed 30%–60% of the ancestry of Balkan people, representing one of the largest permanent demographic changes anywhere in Europe during the Migration Period.
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•A frontier region of ancient Rome was as cosmopolitan as the imperial center•Genetic proof that migrants identified as Goths were ethnically diverse confederations•Slavic-speaking migrants account for 30%–60% of the ancestry of Balkan peoples today•A model for integrating archaeology with genetics
Genome-wide data from 146 ancient Balkan individuals dating to the 1st millennium CE, together with detailed archaeological information, reveals internal migratory patterns during the Roman Empire and documents the demographic impact of Early Medieval Slavic migrations that significantly contributed to the present-day Balkan gene pool.
In 2012, in the village Davidovac situated in south Serbia, 9.5 km south-west from Vranje, archaeological investigations were conducted on the site Crkviste. The remains of the smaller bronze-age ...settlement were discovered, above which a late antique horizon was later formed. Apart from modest remains of a bronze-age house and pits, a late antique necropolis was also excavated, of which two vaulted tombs and nine graves were inspected during this campaign. During the excavation of the northern sector of the site Davidovac-Crkviste the north-eastern periphery of the necropolis is detected. Graves 1-3, 5 and 6 are situated on the north?eastern borderline of necropolis, while the position of the tombs and the remaining four graves (4, 7-9) in their vicinity point that the necropolis was further spreading to the west and to the south?west, occupying the mount on which the church of St. George and modern graveyard are situated nowadays. All graves are oriented in the direction SW-NE, with the deviance between 3? and 17?, in four cases toward the south and in seven cases toward the north, while the largest part of those deviations is between 3? and 8?. Few small finds from the layer above the graves can in some way enable the determination of their dating. Those are two roman coins, one from the reign of emperor Valens (364-378), as well as the fibula of the type Viminacium-Novae which is chronologically tied to a longer period from the middle of the 5th to the middle of the 6th century, although there are some geographically close analogies dated to the end of the 4th or the beginning of the 5th century. Analogies for the tombs from Davidovac can be found on numerous sites, like in Sirmium as well as in Macvanska Mitrovica, where they are dated to the 4th-5th century. Similar situation was detected in Viminacium, former capital of the roman province of Upper Moesia. In ancient Naissus, on the site of Jagodin Mala, simple rectangular tombs were distributed in rows, while the complex painted tombs with Christian motifs were also found and dated by the coins to the period from the 4th to the 6th century. Also, in Kolovrat near Prijepolje simple vaulted tombs with walled dromos were excavated. During the excavations on the nearby site Davidovac-Gradiste, 39 graves of type Mala Kopasnica-Sase dated to the 2nd-3rd century were found, as well as 67 cist graves, which were dated by the coins of Constantius II, jewellery and buckles to the second half of the 4th or the first half of the 5th century. Based on all above mentioned it can be concluded that during the period from the 2nd to the 6th century in this area existed a roman and late antique settlement and several necropolises, formed along an important ancient road Via militaris, traced at the length of over 130 m in the direction NE-SW. Data gained with the anthropological analyses of 10 skeletons from the site Davidovac-Crkviste don't give enough information for a conclusion about the paleo-demographical structure of the population that lived here during late antiquity. Important results about the paleo-pathological changes, which do not occur often on archaeological sites, as well as the clearer picture about this population in total, will be acquired after the osteological material from the site Davidovac-Gradiste is statistically analysed.
U selu Davidovcu, udaljenom 9,5 kilometara jugozapadno od Vranja, na potesu Crkviste, sprovedena su arheoloska istrazivanja. Tom prilikom su konstatovani ostaci manjeg bronzanodopskog naselja, iznad kojeg se kasnije formirao kasnoanticki horizont. Pored skromnih naseobinskih ostataka, otkrivena je i kasnoanticka nekropola, od koje su ovom prilikom istrazene dve zasvedene grobnice i devet grobnih konstrukcija. Kako su grobne celine najvecim delom bile jos ranije opljackane, skeletni ostaci pokojnika konstatovani su u grobnicama i jednom grobu.
This article deals with the social and anthropological aspects of burial
rituals during the Middle Bronze Age in Timocka Krajina. Decades of
systematic research of necropolises and reconnaissance in ...the basin of the
Crni Timok proved an increase in number of sites around ore - rich areas of
the east Kucaj mountains as well as around Romuliana site and the fertile
valleys of Dzanovo polje (Map. 1). The quantitative increase in settlements
was reflected by the emergence of large necropolises, only three of which
have been systematically explored; those in Trnjani, Magura and Bor Lake
(Fig. 1; Plan 1). Analysis of geographical features of many settlements and
their position in relation to natural resources helped define two
communities, one of which carried out mining and metallurgical activities,
while the other group engaged in the production of food. Both groups lived in
the immediate vicinity and mutual dependence, functioning within a developed
market for copper production. During the exploration of the necropolis near
Bor Lake in 1997, the remains of burnt skeletons were collected from burial
structures 2/97 and 13/97 (Fig. 2; Plans 2 and 3). Anthropological analysis
of the cremated remains of the deceased showed that high temperatures were
used during the cremation process, which we assume could have only been
achieved in metallurgical furnaces. This is confirmed by the fact that the
skeletal fragments contain traces of melted metal, as well as finds of bronze
slag inside urns and grave structures in the necropolis in Trnjani (Figs. 3
and 4; Tables 1-4). Burial ritual of this kind was not proved by systematic
archaeological research of necropolises in the basin of Crni Timok, although
anthropological data collected from necropolises linked to metallurgical
settlements may indicate some guidelines in the ritual cremation of prominent
members of these communities.
Ancient DNA research in the past decade has revealed that European population structure changed dramatically in the prehistoric period (14,000-3000 years before present, YBP), reflecting the ...widespread introduction of Neolithic farmer and Bronze Age Steppe ancestries. However, little is known about how population structure changed from the historical period onward (3000 YBP - present). To address this, we collected whole genomes from 204 individuals from Europe and the Mediterranean, many of which are the first historical period genomes from their region (e.g. Armenia and France). We found that most regions show remarkable inter-individual heterogeneity. At least 7% of historical individuals carry ancestry uncommon in the region where they were sampled, some indicating cross-Mediterranean contacts. Despite this high level of mobility, overall population structure across western Eurasia is relatively stable through the historical period up to the present, mirroring geography. We show that, under standard population genetics models with local panmixia, the observed level of dispersal would lead to a collapse of population structure. Persistent population structure thus suggests a lower effective migration rate than indicated by the observed dispersal. We hypothesize that this phenomenon can be explained by extensive transient dispersal arising from drastically improved transportation networks and the Roman Empire's mobilization of people for trade, labor, and military. This work highlights the utility of ancient DNA in elucidating finer scale human population dynamics in recent history.
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