Periodic Reporting for period 1 - BIOSOCIOPOLIS (The BIOarchaeology of SOCIO-POLitical changes in AmphipolIS: Exploring the impact of broad historical trends and status quo transitions on human lifeways and deathways, through a multi-proxy approach)
Reporting period: 2022-10-03 to 2024-12-02
This project will develop a new understanding of how multiple socio-political transitions, representing different forms of urbanism, may impact on lifeways (way of life or manner of living) and deathways (practices of a society surrounding death) on a diachronic scale. This will be accomplished by combining theoretical, macroscopic and geo-chemical approaches. The diachronic case of ancient Amphipolis in Northern Greece, experiencing many different political models, was chosen as an ideal case study.
Living under different social and political regimes shapes the human body, both biologically and culturally. Having knowledge on the types of political systems and aspects of their social hierarchy provides in theory the capacity to actually measure how different regimes may impact on lifeways and deathways, from the rich to the poor in a society.
Amphipolis, which is located at the modern regional unit of Serres, in Macedonia, north of Greece, experienced different forms and ideologies of urbanism, such as colonization, political autonomy, consolidation and imperialization, between the Late Archaic/Classical and Roman periods. The core aim of the proposed project is to develop a new model to reveal the extent to which multiple and consecutive socio-political transitions on a population in a diachronic perspective affect human lifeways and deathways. Three research objectives are formed:
1) To better understand the relation between cultural identities in death and lifeways under the prism of diachronic socio-political processes, through a combined analysis of funerary practices with health, lifestyle and mobility.
2) To reveal the degree and ways in which health and lifestyle are affected by multiple political systems, by integrating stress and pathology indicators into lifestyle markers.
3) To provide a high-resolution on how cultural and biological factors may lead to stress and disease, through investigating mobility/biodistance (the latter is defined as a measure of relatedness/divergence between groups of people) combined with health/lifestyle. This approach will also offer a contextualized framework for the holistic study of human mobility.
Investigating the effects of multiple and consecutive socio-political transitions diachronically in the same context, under the lens of bioarchaeology, offers the unique opportunity for critical new knowledge relative to defining the balance between continuity and transformation on a large temporal scale. It also reveals how differential resource management associated with multiple political systems impacts on human lifeways and deathways. Such an approach remains rather unexplored and can bring longer term scientific impacts beyond the framework of this specific context.
Moreover, as reconstructing the health profile of an ancient society is most informative about the way of living in the past, neglecting to properly explore predisposing factors for stress and disease can create serious biases and misinterpretations. This is because every individual alive at a particular age is not at the same risk of dying at that age, due to biological (e.g. genetic predisposition) and cultural (e.g. differential access to food due to socio-economic status) reasons. This concept is described by the term "heterogeneous frailty". Nonetheless, the concept of frailty has been widely overlooked, as very few studies have directly investigated it as a subject worthy of inquiry in and of itself. Mortuary evidence linked to ‘‘elaborate” and “modest” burial features in Amphipolis’ cemeteries, as well as the presence of multiple inhumation burials which possibly suggests likely familial use, offers the opportunity to investigate the sources of frailty both culturally and biologically, thus making a true methodological advancement for the field of bioarchaeology. We are living in ‘an age of migration’ and scholars from multiple disciplines, including
archaeology, have become intrigued with this very complex phenomenon. The proposed project integrates funerary evidence and historical theory into macroscopic bioarchaeological analyses and stable isotopes to reveal the lived experience of human mobility.
Finally, studying the history of Amphipolis, which formed intense inter-state relations with all the big forces of the classical Greek world, can bring important progress for humanities. The current bioarchaeological state of the art for historical period Greece has mainly focused on exploring general health during the Roman era and to a lesser degree on the Hellenistic and Classical periods, while diet and migration have been less addressed during the entire stated timeframe. Historical sources on Amphipolis’ dynamic history, offer information on administrative, constitutional and cultural changes. Nonetheless a key thing to consider is that many or most of these sources were politically motivated and so only reflect aspects of interest to the writer and their agenda, not neutral testimonies in most cases. Bioarchaeology has the capacity to illuminate lived human experiences which remain invisible or altered in historical or archaeological information. Therefore, through the paradigm of Amphipolis, this approach can also induce a better understanding of lived experience in the ancient Greek world and by extension in the Classical world.
The BIOSOCIOPOLIS project is hosted at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTh) in Greece, School of History and Archaeology. The BIOSOCIOPOLIS team consists of a) the fellow, Dr. Dimitra Ermioni Michael; b) the PI, Associate Professor Sevi Triantaphyllou ; c) Assistant Professor Panagiotis Tselekas (AUTh), d) Associate Professor Ilias Sverkos (AUTh), e) Dr. Dimitra Malamidou, the Director of the Ephorate of Antiquities in Serres and of the Amphipolis Museum and f) Assistant Professor Christophe Snoeck, BB-LAB, Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB).
Living under different social and political regimes shapes the human body, both biologically and culturally. Having knowledge on the types of political systems and aspects of their social hierarchy provides in theory the capacity to actually measure how different regimes may impact on lifeways and deathways, from the rich to the poor in a society.
Amphipolis, which is located at the modern regional unit of Serres, in Macedonia, north of Greece, experienced different forms and ideologies of urbanism, such as colonization, political autonomy, consolidation and imperialization, between the Late Archaic/Classical and Roman periods. The core aim of the proposed project is to develop a new model to reveal the extent to which multiple and consecutive socio-political transitions on a population in a diachronic perspective affect human lifeways and deathways. Three research objectives are formed:
1) To better understand the relation between cultural identities in death and lifeways under the prism of diachronic socio-political processes, through a combined analysis of funerary practices with health, lifestyle and mobility.
2) To reveal the degree and ways in which health and lifestyle are affected by multiple political systems, by integrating stress and pathology indicators into lifestyle markers.
3) To provide a high-resolution on how cultural and biological factors may lead to stress and disease, through investigating mobility/biodistance (the latter is defined as a measure of relatedness/divergence between groups of people) combined with health/lifestyle. This approach will also offer a contextualized framework for the holistic study of human mobility.
Investigating the effects of multiple and consecutive socio-political transitions diachronically in the same context, under the lens of bioarchaeology, offers the unique opportunity for critical new knowledge relative to defining the balance between continuity and transformation on a large temporal scale. It also reveals how differential resource management associated with multiple political systems impacts on human lifeways and deathways. Such an approach remains rather unexplored and can bring longer term scientific impacts beyond the framework of this specific context.
Moreover, as reconstructing the health profile of an ancient society is most informative about the way of living in the past, neglecting to properly explore predisposing factors for stress and disease can create serious biases and misinterpretations. This is because every individual alive at a particular age is not at the same risk of dying at that age, due to biological (e.g. genetic predisposition) and cultural (e.g. differential access to food due to socio-economic status) reasons. This concept is described by the term "heterogeneous frailty". Nonetheless, the concept of frailty has been widely overlooked, as very few studies have directly investigated it as a subject worthy of inquiry in and of itself. Mortuary evidence linked to ‘‘elaborate” and “modest” burial features in Amphipolis’ cemeteries, as well as the presence of multiple inhumation burials which possibly suggests likely familial use, offers the opportunity to investigate the sources of frailty both culturally and biologically, thus making a true methodological advancement for the field of bioarchaeology. We are living in ‘an age of migration’ and scholars from multiple disciplines, including
archaeology, have become intrigued with this very complex phenomenon. The proposed project integrates funerary evidence and historical theory into macroscopic bioarchaeological analyses and stable isotopes to reveal the lived experience of human mobility.
Finally, studying the history of Amphipolis, which formed intense inter-state relations with all the big forces of the classical Greek world, can bring important progress for humanities. The current bioarchaeological state of the art for historical period Greece has mainly focused on exploring general health during the Roman era and to a lesser degree on the Hellenistic and Classical periods, while diet and migration have been less addressed during the entire stated timeframe. Historical sources on Amphipolis’ dynamic history, offer information on administrative, constitutional and cultural changes. Nonetheless a key thing to consider is that many or most of these sources were politically motivated and so only reflect aspects of interest to the writer and their agenda, not neutral testimonies in most cases. Bioarchaeology has the capacity to illuminate lived human experiences which remain invisible or altered in historical or archaeological information. Therefore, through the paradigm of Amphipolis, this approach can also induce a better understanding of lived experience in the ancient Greek world and by extension in the Classical world.
The BIOSOCIOPOLIS project is hosted at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTh) in Greece, School of History and Archaeology. The BIOSOCIOPOLIS team consists of a) the fellow, Dr. Dimitra Ermioni Michael; b) the PI, Associate Professor Sevi Triantaphyllou ; c) Assistant Professor Panagiotis Tselekas (AUTh), d) Associate Professor Ilias Sverkos (AUTh), e) Dr. Dimitra Malamidou, the Director of the Ephorate of Antiquities in Serres and of the Amphipolis Museum and f) Assistant Professor Christophe Snoeck, BB-LAB, Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB).
During the timeframe of the action, the fellow performed the following activities:
1) Osteological work: The fellow dedicated substancial time to study a number of human inhumation and cremation burials (predominantly the former). For inhumation burials the osteological work included: a) determination of the minimun number of individuals (MNI) per burial. In the majority of cases burials included a single inhumation (one individual). But in several instances, particularly during the Roman period, multiple individuals were found; b) biological profile analysis (estimation of biological sex, age and stature); c) palaeopathological investigation (assessment of physiological stress markers, physical activity markers, oral health indicators- e.g. dental caries and calculus- and trauma analysis); d) non-metric analysis. Non-metric traits are non-pathological characteristics of the normal human anatomy that can't be measured and they have been extensively used in bioarchaeology to infer biological affinitities or differences between groups of people. This method was used to compare groups of individuals from Amphipoli's cemeteries between different time periods (e.g. Classical period vs. Hellenistic vs Roman). For cremation burials the macroscopic work included: a) determination of the minimun number of individuals (MNI) per burial; b) assessment of colour alterations. This method is believed to offer insights on the temperature of the pyre (e.g. white bone fragments have been associated with temperatures above 700 Celsius degrees); c) assessment of the fissures/fractures on the cremated bones; d) measurements and e) when possible, observations on the biological and palaeopathological profile of the individuals under study.
2) Isotopic work: During the secondment period at Vrije Universiteit Brussel- BB-LAB, the fellow received extensive training on isotope analysis. More specifically: a) tooth samples were analyzed for strontium analysis, which is a well-established method to explore the concept of mobility/locality. Strontium analysis was performed both in inhumed and cremated samples; b) bone and tooth samples were used for carbon and nitrogen analysis. Carbon and nitrogen are the most commonly used proxies for dietary reconstruction and when they are analyzed from the collagen part of the bone or tooth they represent the protein diet which was consumed; c) tooth samples (mostly canines) were also used for incremental dentine analysis. This method is able to shed light on potential dietary changes during the cource of an individual's lifetime; d) finally in order to form regional baselines for Amphipolis, plant and animal bone samples were gathered and analyzed at the BB-LAB. This will allow the comparison of human values against environemental ones.
3) Contextual work: During the entire two year framework of the BIOSOCIOPOLIS project, but mostly during the second year of the project, the fellow has dedicated substancial time in gathering contextual information in relation to Amphipolis' cemeteries. First of all, along with the PI of the project, Associate Professor Sevi Triantaphyllou, and the Director of Amphipolis' Museum Dr. Dimitra Malamdou, we decided to choose inhumation and cremation burials primarily on the basis of availability of contextual data (i.e. immediate access to the excavation journals and study of the material findings). We also made sure to have a representative sample in terms of time period and different burial practices. The fellow has also gathered information on the historical and archaeological context of ancient Macedonia- with the help of Assistant Professor Panagiotis Tselekas and of Associate Professor Ilias Sverkos- both members of the advisory team of the post-doctoral position of Dr. Michael at AUTh School of Archaeology. The main task that is currently undertaken- and is something completely novel for historical populations in Greece- is the attempt to associate contextual data with osteological information in order to explore the concept of socio-economic inequalities/differences. In particular, along with archaeologist Mr. Aris Tsanaktsidis (who is currently working on his Masters' thesis), we are developing a systematic approach absolutely particular for Amphipolis where three criteria will be taken into consederation; the type of tomb (e.g. pit, cist, tile); the number of artifacts per individual and the elaborateness of materials per individual (e.g. gold, silver, bronze, glass etc). The goal is to compare health, dietary and mobility data in relation to the three abovementioned factors.
1) Osteological work: The fellow dedicated substancial time to study a number of human inhumation and cremation burials (predominantly the former). For inhumation burials the osteological work included: a) determination of the minimun number of individuals (MNI) per burial. In the majority of cases burials included a single inhumation (one individual). But in several instances, particularly during the Roman period, multiple individuals were found; b) biological profile analysis (estimation of biological sex, age and stature); c) palaeopathological investigation (assessment of physiological stress markers, physical activity markers, oral health indicators- e.g. dental caries and calculus- and trauma analysis); d) non-metric analysis. Non-metric traits are non-pathological characteristics of the normal human anatomy that can't be measured and they have been extensively used in bioarchaeology to infer biological affinitities or differences between groups of people. This method was used to compare groups of individuals from Amphipoli's cemeteries between different time periods (e.g. Classical period vs. Hellenistic vs Roman). For cremation burials the macroscopic work included: a) determination of the minimun number of individuals (MNI) per burial; b) assessment of colour alterations. This method is believed to offer insights on the temperature of the pyre (e.g. white bone fragments have been associated with temperatures above 700 Celsius degrees); c) assessment of the fissures/fractures on the cremated bones; d) measurements and e) when possible, observations on the biological and palaeopathological profile of the individuals under study.
2) Isotopic work: During the secondment period at Vrije Universiteit Brussel- BB-LAB, the fellow received extensive training on isotope analysis. More specifically: a) tooth samples were analyzed for strontium analysis, which is a well-established method to explore the concept of mobility/locality. Strontium analysis was performed both in inhumed and cremated samples; b) bone and tooth samples were used for carbon and nitrogen analysis. Carbon and nitrogen are the most commonly used proxies for dietary reconstruction and when they are analyzed from the collagen part of the bone or tooth they represent the protein diet which was consumed; c) tooth samples (mostly canines) were also used for incremental dentine analysis. This method is able to shed light on potential dietary changes during the cource of an individual's lifetime; d) finally in order to form regional baselines for Amphipolis, plant and animal bone samples were gathered and analyzed at the BB-LAB. This will allow the comparison of human values against environemental ones.
3) Contextual work: During the entire two year framework of the BIOSOCIOPOLIS project, but mostly during the second year of the project, the fellow has dedicated substancial time in gathering contextual information in relation to Amphipolis' cemeteries. First of all, along with the PI of the project, Associate Professor Sevi Triantaphyllou, and the Director of Amphipolis' Museum Dr. Dimitra Malamdou, we decided to choose inhumation and cremation burials primarily on the basis of availability of contextual data (i.e. immediate access to the excavation journals and study of the material findings). We also made sure to have a representative sample in terms of time period and different burial practices. The fellow has also gathered information on the historical and archaeological context of ancient Macedonia- with the help of Assistant Professor Panagiotis Tselekas and of Associate Professor Ilias Sverkos- both members of the advisory team of the post-doctoral position of Dr. Michael at AUTh School of Archaeology. The main task that is currently undertaken- and is something completely novel for historical populations in Greece- is the attempt to associate contextual data with osteological information in order to explore the concept of socio-economic inequalities/differences. In particular, along with archaeologist Mr. Aris Tsanaktsidis (who is currently working on his Masters' thesis), we are developing a systematic approach absolutely particular for Amphipolis where three criteria will be taken into consederation; the type of tomb (e.g. pit, cist, tile); the number of artifacts per individual and the elaborateness of materials per individual (e.g. gold, silver, bronze, glass etc). The goal is to compare health, dietary and mobility data in relation to the three abovementioned factors.
Under the two year frame of the MSCA BIOSOCIOPOLIS project, approximately 200 individuals (Minimum number of individuals-MNI) were macroscopically analyzed, mostly inhumation burials and to a very small extent cremations. As already mentioned, the selection of the suitable bodies of research was made based on representative criteria (representation of different time periods and various funenary practices) as well as immediate availability to contextual data. Furthermore, 90 human samples were isotopically analyzed (and are being analyzed at the moment) at the VUB, for the purpose of dietary and mobility reconstruction. Even though, both isotopic and statistical analyses are still on going, a first overview of results can be summarized to: a) During the Classical transition, at the time when Amphipolis became an Athenian colony and therefore a city state, enamel hypoplasia-which is a non-specific stress indicator-significantly increase, even though the Archaic sample is very limited. Enamel hypoplasia is observed on the labial/buccal surface of the teeth and it reflects episodes of stress during growth, as teeth do not remodel after their formation. Enamel hypoplasia has been associated with episodes of metabolic stress (even mild or moderate), malnutrition or infectious disease. This change can be attributed to the negative effects in human health that have been repeatedly associated with the process of urbanization. At the same time, during the stated transition, a vast increase in calculus rates is noted. This can be linked to a possible increase in protein consumption during the Classical transition; b) Moreover, based on our results, it seems that during the Roman transition there was a decline of standard of living. This is primarily manifested through the significant enamel hypoplasia increase. There is also a slight decline both in stature estimates and in nitrogen isotope values during the stated transition. These results are also in agreement with literary sources referring to a widening of class differentiations via the development of a stratified political, economic and social order in Amphipolis during the Roman times. c) primary analysis from Amphipolis' Eastern Cemetery has revealed some very interesting data combining lived reality with funerary elements. In specific, female or probable female burials show a greater variability in terms of burial type and type of materials recovered in them. Burials that have been unearthed with no artifacts have been mostly attributed to male or probable male individuals. Non-adult individuals on the other hand, are mainly found in pit and tile burials, while the most prestigious materials that are associated with them are silver or gilded and not gold ones. Gold artifacts, are mainly found in middle and old middle adult individuals (25-35 years old and 36-50, respectively). Calculus rates seem to prevail in pit burials, while individuals in burials with bronze and/or iron items seem to present higher calculus frequencies in relation to those buried in burials with silver, gold or gold and silver items. Neverthless, it seems that mortuary environment with lived reality do not share a simplistic straightforward relationship and more analysis needs to be done in that regard. d) Interesting differentiations have been noted between individuals that were buried at the site of Domiros, which is located in the inland part of Amphipolis, compared to individuals that were buried at the Eastern cemetery which belongs to the actual site of Amphipolis (much closer to the coast). According to an archaeological hypothesis, Domiros residents might have been “local” Thracians and they definitely would not be considered as citizens of Amphipolis, based on their geographic location. Domiros’ individuals seem to have different oral health and stress patterns compared to individuals buried at the Eastern cemetery. Moreover, there seems to be a differentiation in the nitrogen isotope values between the Domiros sample (inland) and the remaining sites of Amphipolis, with the latter showing more elevated nitrogen values, which could indicate more animal and freshwater consumption. In addition, carbon isotope values between the two locations indicate a greater variability for the Domiros sample with a possible higher inclusion of C4 sources (plants that follow the C4 photosynthetic pathway, e.g. millet); d) regarding biodistance and mobility, cranial non-metric analysis possibly suggests that inward mobility/migration might have shifted the genetic pool during the Classical period, whereas dental non-metric analysis suggests a significant difference between the Classical and the Hellenistic group, also pointing to possible inward migration during these periods, which is supported by literary sources and archaeological data. Moreover, primary strontium and oxygen results, shown significant overlaping between different time periods. More isotopic data are needed to form safer conslusions.
This research has revealed novel information regarding ancient Amphipolis. More than that, this is the first research that focuses on the impacts of multiple and consecutive socio-political transitions on human lifeways and deathways in a historical population, on a large temporal scale, in Northern Greece. This brings important new knowledge for the wider region and for the field of historical bioarchaeology. A most important contribution, that will bring important progress beyond the state of the art is identifying potential health and lifestyle differences linked to socio-economic inequalities. As already stated above, such analysis has brought interesting first insights. The next step, will require an even more detailed approach including as many data as possible to compare funerary elements (type of burial, type of materials and number of artifacts per burial) with health and lifestyle indicators (stress indicators, diet, physical activity, mobility). Even though, each archaeological context is unique, the proposed contextual methodology can serve as a model for future researchers focusing on status-quo transitions and socio-economic differences under the lens of bioarchaeology.
This research has revealed novel information regarding ancient Amphipolis. More than that, this is the first research that focuses on the impacts of multiple and consecutive socio-political transitions on human lifeways and deathways in a historical population, on a large temporal scale, in Northern Greece. This brings important new knowledge for the wider region and for the field of historical bioarchaeology. A most important contribution, that will bring important progress beyond the state of the art is identifying potential health and lifestyle differences linked to socio-economic inequalities. As already stated above, such analysis has brought interesting first insights. The next step, will require an even more detailed approach including as many data as possible to compare funerary elements (type of burial, type of materials and number of artifacts per burial) with health and lifestyle indicators (stress indicators, diet, physical activity, mobility). Even though, each archaeological context is unique, the proposed contextual methodology can serve as a model for future researchers focusing on status-quo transitions and socio-economic differences under the lens of bioarchaeology.