Food Consumption in Roman Britain: Diversity and Change

This project aims to analyse the diet of people living in Britain during the Roman period (c. AD 43- 410). This period represents a time of major change in Britain: the Roman conquest resulted in the creation of military settlements, towns, a complex road system, specialised craft production, markets, long-distance trade, and the emergence of new social classes. In terms of food, it brought new consumers (people not involved in agricultural production), and new foods, such as grapes, figs, olives, peach, almond, coriander, cucumber, and black pepper, introduced from the Mediterranean region and beyond. What effect did these new developments have? Was this a period of major diversification and change in diet? Do the newly imported foods replace the traditional ones, or do the latter become consumed exclusively by certain groups of the population? Do the new consumers distinguish themselves from the rural community in terms of diet? Since many of the new foods were initially expensive, difficult to obtain and consequently only available to the elite, did they remain exclusive foods throughout the period or did their status change over time? Did any become commonly available and even locally cultivated?

The project concerns the analysis of the botanical food remains recovered from Roman period excavations in Britain, consisting of c. 550 published reports. The objective is to write three research papers, synthesizing and interpreting the available evidence for a non-specialist audience. One will represent an overall synthesis of the changes in the British diet over this period, evaluating both cultural and environmental factors influencing the choice of food and assessing the degree to which food helped create or enhance cultural identities. The second paper will focus on the dispersal histories of the exotic foods brought in and assess the degree of differential access to these foods. The third will evaluate the quality of the data currently available for this study, and highlight future research and methodological needs.


Food is both a biological and social need for all human societies, and the roots of our current diet are located in history. This research will advance our understanding of the first major period of change in the British diet since the Neolithic. Moreover, as food is both a manifestation of social identity and a tool with which social identities and relations are created, maintained and enhanced, this study will also add to our knowledge of Romano-British society.