The investigation took place in two Imperial-era cemeteries and showed that several individuals, mostly men and children, migrated to Rome, changing significantly their diet after their move.
It is believed that up to one million people lived in Imperial Rome, with voluntary immigrants accounting for about 5 percent of the population and slaves for up to 40 percent. However, these are just estimates, as there is no complete Imperial-era census for the city of Rome.
"They say that all roads lead to Rome, but finding direct evidence of immigrants to the Eternal City has troubled archaeologists for decades," bioarchaeologists Kristina Killgrove of the University of West Florida, said.
To find physical evidence of human migration in Imperial Rome, Killgrove and colleague Janet Montgomery of Durham University, UK, examined skeletal remains buried at two Rome-area cemeteries during the 1st through 3rd centuries AD.
By analyzing the isotopes of the elements strontium and oxygen, it was possible to determine whether a person's tooth was formed during a time he or she was living in Rome.
Killgrove analyzed 105 teeth for strontium isotopes, and Montgomery examined 55 of those for oxygen isotopes.
Aqueduct water and imported grain were also taken into account to assess the local isotope ranges.
"In the end, there was one female skeleton, several male skeletons, and several children whose sex could not be determined that likely were not born at Rome," Killgrove said.
At least eight individuals, five of them quite young, turned to be migrants from outside Rome, possibly from North Africa, the Alps and the Apennine Mountains in Italy.
"Children and adolescents could have come to Rome to be educated, to become apprentices, to be married, as part of a family that migrated, or even as slaves," Killgrove told Discovery News.
The scale of slavery within the Empire was quite large.
Read more at Discovery News
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