Marie Skłodowska-Curie postdoctoral fellow Dr Jessie Feito (‘FoodMod-RGB: Modelling food plant trade in the Roman provinces of Gaul and Britannia’ [HORIZON-MSCA-2023-PF-01]) recently returned from working in the University of Barcelona, Department of Biology isotope lab with Professor Jose Luis Aarus Ortega, Maria Dolors Serret Molins, and Joel Segarra Torruella. She spent a few weeks processing samples from the Roman site of Nasium, France, for stable isotope analysis. Jessie, Alexandra Livarda and other members of the ICAC archaeobotany team are working together with colleagues including Bertrand Bonaventure and Miguel Rodriduez (Archeodunum), who led the excavations at Nasium, and Julian Wiethold (INRAP) and Hadrien Adami (University of Bourgogne Europe), who have undertaken the archaeobotanical analysis at the site for Adami’s Masters thesis (“Manger végétal à Nasium : approche carpologique du site des Grandes Corvées”, supervised by Julian Wiethold, Miguel Rodriguez, and Bertrand Bonaventure).
The aim of this collaboration is to use the results to shed light on past environmental conditions and agriculture in Roman Gallia. In using carbon and nitrogen isotopes to explore cultivation practices such as fertilisation and water management, this research has the potential to offer new insight into food production, sustainability, and rural lifeways in the region.
