Overview
- The peer-reviewed Antiquity study identifies significant health declines limited to Roman administrative towns, with rural populations showing no statistical shift from Iron Age baselines.
- Urban sites recorded markedly higher abnormality rates—81% of adults and 61% of children—compared with 62% and 26% respectively in Iron Age samples, while rural Roman figures were intermediate and not significantly different.
- The dataset spans 372 non-adults and 274 adult females from 24 sites in south and central England, with the strongest urban signals at Winchester (Venta Belgarum) and Cirencester (Corinium Dobunnorum).
- Assessed markers included rickets, cribra orbitalia, infectious lesions and enamel hypoplasia, which the authors associate with overcrowding, pollution, lead exposure and introduced diseases in urban settings.
- Archaeologists caution that widening social inequality or burial-sample biases could contribute to the pattern, noting that benefits of Roman sanitation and medicine were unlikely to be evenly distributed.