Dr Anna Moles

Social inequality in Roman Crete: a contextualised bioarchaeological perspective

Understanding health inequality in the past provides a crucial context for current health disparities and offers a wider lens for considering the factors that can lead to such inequalities. Studying the mechanisms through which social factors impact well-being helps build a nuanced understanding of how cultural and social factors intersect with health, providing a more comprehensive view of the challenges faced by different populations.

Crete experienced significant socio-economic changes during the Roman period. This was a period of increased connectivity, productivity and investment in infrastructure on the island. Research focusing on trade, politics and administration within the context of the Roman Empire can demonstrate these broad-scale changes, but a social bioarchaeological approach to the investigation of the mortuary evidence can give greater insights into the lives of people. We can explore the extent of social inequality that was experienced by people how this impacted individual lifeways and society. The palaeopathological study of the human skeletal remains combined with an analysis of social status from the burial environment (tomb type, grave goods) can indicate differential health status, diets, and activities for different groups. This analysis focuses particularly on Knossos where a large skeletal assemblage from the Roman period (as well as the preceding and succeeding periods) has been studied and published.

Anna C. Moles is Assistant Professor of Mediterranean Archaeology and Human Osteoarchaeology at the University of Groningen. Before taking up this position, she was the Assistant Director of the Irish Institute of Hellenic Studies at Athens (2019-2021). She completed her PhD, entitled Urbanism and its impact on human health: a long-term study at Knossos, Crete, at University College London in 2019, and has MA and MSc degrees from the Universities of St Andrews and Edinburgh respectively. Her research uses a contextualised bioarchaeological approach to the study of past health and lifeways to understand how changing social dynamics impacted people. She is currently working on projects in Central Greece, Crete, the Netherlands and Belize.