Last week Patricia Vandorpe was in Brandenburg (Germany) presenting her MSCA Project at the yearly conference of the German archaeobotanists «Treffen der Arbeitsgruppe Archäobotanik» from the 31st of May to the 2nd of June 2024 in the Archäologischen Landesmuseum of Brandenburg. Her talk ‘Handel mit Nahrungspflanzen im Römischen Reich: Untersuchung des Wachstums und der Entwicklung städtischer Zentren’ (Trade in food plants in the Roman Empire: Investigating the growth and development of urban centres) focused on plant remains and how they can help to unravel the complex process behind the emergence and development of urban centres in the northern provinces of the Roman Empire.
As part of the MSCA project she created a geodatabase with archaeobotanical data from Roman sites in the Germania provinces. The dataset is compiled from a combination of publications, reports, databases and unpublished data. It was the perfect opportunity to present the first results to an audience many of whom generously shared data for the project!
Patricia Vandorpe is a MSCA postdoctoral fellow with the Project PlantNetGem (Horizon MSCA-2021-PF-01, Proposal number 101063192): Exploring the process of urbanisation in the Roman provinces of Germania through the study of food plant commerce. Supervisors Dr A. Livarda, Prof H. Orengo (https://plantnetgem.icac.cat/)
