Tracing Roman culinary influence in northern provinces via archaeobotanical evidence

The Research Seminar Series in Archaeology and Environmental archaeology invites you to a seminar with Patricia Vandorpe, Institut Catala de Arqueologia Classica, Tarragona, Spain. Vandorpe will speak on the topic “Tracing the influence of Roman culinary traditions in the northern provinces through archaeobotanical evidence.”

Zoom link: https://umu.zoom.us/j/68016068135

Link to the speaker portfolio: https://icac.cat/qui-som/personal/pvandorpe/

Abstract: The expansion of the Roman Empire from the 1st century BC onwards, which was accompanied by the establishment of the provinces of Germania Inferior and Germania Superior, brought a number of changes to the local communities in the area and laid the foundations for aspects of modern life. These changes, or parts of them, were integrated into the Roman network and led to the introduction of new ideas, materials and flavours, some of which were adopted, adapted or further developed. In this paper, the dietary habits in the northern provinces of the Roman Empire are analysed on the basis of food plants. Archaeobotanical data was collected in an object-oriented relational geodatabase to enable comparisons and to obtain an up-to-date and very comprehensive dataset. The aim of the analysis is to identify plant-based dietary patterns of different social groups and their significance for coping with the new realities in the Roman world. Finally, it will discuss how the network of food plants in the region can be analysed and how this can contribute to a new understanding of the Roman economy.

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The Research Seminar Series in Archaeology and Environmental Archaeology presents and discusses current research in archaeology and environmental archaeology.
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