Dietary Variation Among Herculaneum's Victims of Mt. Vesuvius via Dental Microwear Texture Analysis

The Roman site of Herculaneum provides an extraordinary opportunity to reconstruct ancient diets in the context of life course theory because everyone died simultaneously due to the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79.

The current study addresses three primary hypotheses: (1) Subadult diets changed as children aged, (2) adult diets differed from subadult diets, and (3) male and female diets differed as they age.

This study includes dental microwear texture data from 58 adults (age 16+) and 23 subadults (age 0-16) recovered by Sarah Bisel from within and near to storage rooms adjacent to Herculaneum's beach. The adults include 27 females and 31 males. Dental microwear texture analysis (DMTA) employed standard procedures: data collection used a white-light confocal profiler at 100×. The DMTA variables were complexity, anisotropy, textural fill volume, and scale of maximum complexity. Statistical methods used Bayesian versions of analysis of variance and correlation (Bayes factors above 1.5 were considered meaningful and above 3.0 significant) as well as discriminant function analysis and binary logistic regression.

No differences emerged among the children. Adult diets were significantly lower than the subadults for anisotropy. Among the adults, age affected the females more, particularly for anisotropy.

Subadult diets did not vary by age, but they did vary. The lower adult anisotropy indicates each adult ate a greater variety of foods compared to the subadults. As females aged, however, their diets became more restricted compared to the males. Overall, age and sex affected the Herculaneum diet.