Current Research

Faces of Oplontis: Bioarchaeology in the Bay of Naples (2016-present)

The eruption of Mt. Vesuvius on 24 Aug 79 AD was not the first sign of impending environmental doom for the people of the Bay of Naples, Italy. A powerful earthquake on 5 Feb 62 AD shook the area, causing widespread destruction of aqueducts and houses as well as loss of grain supply, and subsequent tremors and noxious gases that killed domestic flocks presaged the volcanic eruption. Although many Romans did not understand the importance of the environmental upheaval for their continued safety, these changes to the natural world certainly affected their health. The approach to investigating environmental change in this research project involves: 1) undertaking a demographic and palaeopathological analysis of all 54 skeletons at the site of Oplontis; 2) studying the diets and diseases of these individuals through their life course to see whether changes in health can be seen in the skeletons; 3) looking at migration patterns to conclude whether the individuals were local or had moved to Oplontis after the earthquake; 4) and determining whether levels of toxic elements commonly found in Roman sites varied prior to and after the earthquake, and leading up to the volcanic eruption. This environmental bioarchaeology project will analyze an historically well-contextualized skeletal collection from a catastrophic mortality event using osteological and biochemical techniques in order to understand people’s complex relationship with the circum-Vesuvian landscape during a critical period of climate change.

Funding: National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Stipend (2017); Rust Family Foundation Archaeology Grant (2017); UWF Research Stimulus Program (2017); Loeb Classical Library Foundation Fellowship (2018-2019); Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research Post-PhD Grant (2018-2019).

Publications to Date:

  • Clarke, J., I. Van Der Graff, G. Di Maio, A. Lagi, M.L. Thomas, J.L. Muslin, A. Pecci, K. Killgrove. 2021. Oplontis: The ancient landscape, the structures, and their relationship with the resources of the Vesuvian region. In: Extra Moenia: Abitare il Territorio della Regione Vesuviana, A. Coralini, ed. L’Erma di Bretschneider, pp. 103-114.

Intramural Burial in the Roman Suburbs (2010-present)

I am the bioarchaeologist for the Gabii Project, directed by Nicola Terrenato at the University of Michigan. Gabii was an urban area about 20 km east of Rome, occupied continuously for about 1,500 years and densely populated by the Republican period.  Fieldwork at the site is ongoing from 2009-2014 and has revealed a number of burials from several different time periods. The skeletons from Gabii are allowing me to answer questions about health, lifestyle, diet, and status using: a) palaeopathological analysis to investigate how urban development and collapse affected the denizens of the city; b) a thorough study of the Gabine diet through a combination of dental pathology, C/N isotope analysis, and analysis of phytoliths in dental calculus; c) a full osteological, isotope, and DNA analysis of the skeletons found in lead sarcophagi, which represent quite anomalous burials in the Roman world; and d) comparative analysis with the populations I studied for my dissertation research. Biochemical analyses are underway as of fall 2015 with the collaboration of Hendrik Poinar (McMaster University), Bethany Turner (Georgia State University), and Robert Tykot (University of South Florida). Publication of these data will be made in top-tier journals, and the results will be synthesized with the Gabii excavation reports as well. For more, see the Roman DNA Project webpage.

Funding: Rockethub Crowdfunding (2011); UWF SCAC Award (2014); UWF Graduate Student Research Award (to Andrea Acosta, 2015)

Publications to date: