Exploring the process of urbanisation in the Roman provinces of Germania through the study of food plant commerce

Project Information

PlantNetGem

Grant agreement ID: 101063192

DOI

10.3030/101063192

Project closed

EC signature date 10 June 2022

Start date 1 November 2022

End date 30 September 2025

Funded under

• Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)

Total cost

No data

EU contribution

€ 181 152,96

Coordinated by

Institut Català d'Arqueologia Clàssica
Spain

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - PlantNetGem (Exploring the process of urbanisation in the Roman provinces of Germania through the study of food plant commerce)

Reporting period: 2022-11-01 to 2025-09-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The PlantNetGem project takes an innovative, interdisciplinary approach, integrating archaeobotany, computational archaeology, and network science to study the movement of goods and people in the Roman provinces of Germania Inferior and Superior. Newly introduced food plants are used as a proxy for studying trade, connectivity, and social access, providing insights into consumption, exchange, and socio-economic patterns.
The main objectives of the PlantNetGem project are to identify which food plants were introduced to the Roman provinces of Germania and when they first appeared; to determine who had access to these newly introduced food plants; to reconstruct settlement connectivity through the Roman transport network; and to integrate these datasets to understand the broader economic and cultural mechanisms behind food plant commerce and urban development.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The main achievement of the PlantNetGem project is the completion of a comprehensive, standardised database including all archaeobotanical and archaeological data on food plants in the Roman provinces of Germania Superior, Germania Inferior and beyond. This database combines published and unpublished archaeobotanical data received from various European laboratories and collected from the literature, offering the first consistent archaeobotanical dataset for large-scale network and other types of analysis in the Germania provinces of the Roman Empire. Digital network graphs were created for the Early, Middle and Late Roman periods based on the data available in the database. These graphs examined links between sites and the distribution of newly introduced food plants.
The analyses of the results revealed how the foodscape of the study area has changed during the Roman period, indicating clear patterns in the spread and access of different taxa across varied social and geographic networks, ultimately providing new insights into connectivity and exchange in the Roman world.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The PlantNetGem project has compiled an extensive archaeobotanical database covering 1246 sites in the Roman provinces of Germania and beyond. The database has identified 56 newly introduced food plants, including 13 imported species and 43 that could potentially be cultivated locally. While many new species were observed in the Early Roman period, it was during the Middle Roman period (from 70 CE) that the greatest diversity was seen. From the Late Roman period onwards (after 250 CE) there was a significant decline in species diversity. The most common introduced food crops in Germania were walnuts, grapes, figs, cherries, apples, coriander and celery, all of which could be cultivated locally. Of the exotic species, olives were by far the most common, followed by pine nuts and dates.
The main agents of food plant dispersal in the provinces of Germania were the Roman military, urban markets and merchants, as well as ritual networks. During the Early Roman period, newly introduced food plants were primarily associated with military sites, reflecting the army's key role in introducing new foodstuffs. From around 30 CE onwards, the new food plants also appeared in emerging urban settlements, indicating the growing importance of towns as centres of exchange and consumption. It is only in the Middle Roman period that these new food plants expanded from urban centres to some rural communities, suggesting a gradual diffusion of new foods beyond military and urban contexts into the wider population. Specific food plants entered the area through other networks. A clear example is the stone pine nut. It was primarily found in Middle to Late Roman temples and burials, which reflects its ritual and symbolic significance rather than regular consumption and suggests its circulation through ceremonial networks that were separate from standard trade routes.
The project's outputs, including the database and digital network visualisations, have opened new windows into food and commerce studies in the past while they offer significant resources for future research into trade, diet and cultural interactions during the Roman period.