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High-resolution dietary reconstruction of victims of the 79 CE Vesuvius eruption at Herculaneum by compound-specific isotope analysis

The remains of those who perished at Herculaneum in 79 CE offer a unique opportunity to examine lifeways across an ancient community who lived and died together. Historical sources often allude to differential access to foodstuffs across Roman society but provide no direct or quantitative informatio...

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Autores principales: Soncin, Silvia, Talbot, Helen M., Fernandes, Ricardo, Harris, Alison, von Tersch, Matthew, Robson, Harry K., Bakker, Jan K., Richter, Kristine K., Alexander, Michelle, Ellis, Steven, Thompson, Gill, Amoretti, Valeria, Osanna, Massimo, Caso, Marina, Sirano, Francesco, Fattore, Luciano, Colonese, Andre C., Garnsey, Peter, Bondioli, Luca, Craig, Oliver E.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: American Association for the Advancement of Science 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8386925/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34433561
http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abg5791
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author Soncin, Silvia
Talbot, Helen M.
Fernandes, Ricardo
Harris, Alison
von Tersch, Matthew
Robson, Harry K.
Bakker, Jan K.
Richter, Kristine K.
Alexander, Michelle
Ellis, Steven
Thompson, Gill
Amoretti, Valeria
Osanna, Massimo
Caso, Marina
Sirano, Francesco
Fattore, Luciano
Colonese, Andre C.
Garnsey, Peter
Bondioli, Luca
Craig, Oliver E.
author_facet Soncin, Silvia
Talbot, Helen M.
Fernandes, Ricardo
Harris, Alison
von Tersch, Matthew
Robson, Harry K.
Bakker, Jan K.
Richter, Kristine K.
Alexander, Michelle
Ellis, Steven
Thompson, Gill
Amoretti, Valeria
Osanna, Massimo
Caso, Marina
Sirano, Francesco
Fattore, Luciano
Colonese, Andre C.
Garnsey, Peter
Bondioli, Luca
Craig, Oliver E.
author_sort Soncin, Silvia
collection PubMed
description The remains of those who perished at Herculaneum in 79 CE offer a unique opportunity to examine lifeways across an ancient community who lived and died together. Historical sources often allude to differential access to foodstuffs across Roman society but provide no direct or quantitative information. By determining the stable isotope values of amino acids from bone collagen and deploying Bayesian models that incorporate knowledge of protein synthesis, we were able to reconstruct the diets of 17 adults from Herculaneum with unprecedented resolution. Significant differences in the proportions of marine and terrestrial foods consumed were observed between males and females, implying that access to food was differentiated according to gender. The approach also provided dietary data of sufficient precision for comparison with assessments of food supply to modern populations, opening up the possibility of benchmarking ancient diets against contemporary settings where the consequences for health are better understood.
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spelling pubmed-83869252021-08-31 High-resolution dietary reconstruction of victims of the 79 CE Vesuvius eruption at Herculaneum by compound-specific isotope analysis Soncin, Silvia Talbot, Helen M. Fernandes, Ricardo Harris, Alison von Tersch, Matthew Robson, Harry K. Bakker, Jan K. Richter, Kristine K. Alexander, Michelle Ellis, Steven Thompson, Gill Amoretti, Valeria Osanna, Massimo Caso, Marina Sirano, Francesco Fattore, Luciano Colonese, Andre C. Garnsey, Peter Bondioli, Luca Craig, Oliver E. Sci Adv Research Articles The remains of those who perished at Herculaneum in 79 CE offer a unique opportunity to examine lifeways across an ancient community who lived and died together. Historical sources often allude to differential access to foodstuffs across Roman society but provide no direct or quantitative information. By determining the stable isotope values of amino acids from bone collagen and deploying Bayesian models that incorporate knowledge of protein synthesis, we were able to reconstruct the diets of 17 adults from Herculaneum with unprecedented resolution. Significant differences in the proportions of marine and terrestrial foods consumed were observed between males and females, implying that access to food was differentiated according to gender. The approach also provided dietary data of sufficient precision for comparison with assessments of food supply to modern populations, opening up the possibility of benchmarking ancient diets against contemporary settings where the consequences for health are better understood. American Association for the Advancement of Science 2021-08-25 /pmc/articles/PMC8386925/ /pubmed/34433561 http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abg5791 Text en Copyright © 2021 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original U.S. Government Works. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (CC BY). https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research Articles
Soncin, Silvia
Talbot, Helen M.
Fernandes, Ricardo
Harris, Alison
von Tersch, Matthew
Robson, Harry K.
Bakker, Jan K.
Richter, Kristine K.
Alexander, Michelle
Ellis, Steven
Thompson, Gill
Amoretti, Valeria
Osanna, Massimo
Caso, Marina
Sirano, Francesco
Fattore, Luciano
Colonese, Andre C.
Garnsey, Peter
Bondioli, Luca
Craig, Oliver E.
High-resolution dietary reconstruction of victims of the 79 CE Vesuvius eruption at Herculaneum by compound-specific isotope analysis
title High-resolution dietary reconstruction of victims of the 79 CE Vesuvius eruption at Herculaneum by compound-specific isotope analysis
title_full High-resolution dietary reconstruction of victims of the 79 CE Vesuvius eruption at Herculaneum by compound-specific isotope analysis
title_fullStr High-resolution dietary reconstruction of victims of the 79 CE Vesuvius eruption at Herculaneum by compound-specific isotope analysis
title_full_unstemmed High-resolution dietary reconstruction of victims of the 79 CE Vesuvius eruption at Herculaneum by compound-specific isotope analysis
title_short High-resolution dietary reconstruction of victims of the 79 CE Vesuvius eruption at Herculaneum by compound-specific isotope analysis
title_sort high-resolution dietary reconstruction of victims of the 79 ce vesuvius eruption at herculaneum by compound-specific isotope analysis
topic Research Articles
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8386925/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34433561
http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abg5791
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