Eating and Drinking along Ancient Roads and Rivers: Study Opportunities, Archaeological Sources and Open Issues about Diet Habits

A Roman cake mould from Istria, amphorae from ancient Nauportus and the remains of meals in late antique settlements are very different kinds of evidence. Together they show how much the history of food depends on what people left behind. Eating and Drinking along Ancient Roads and Rivers follows the vessels, ingredients and bodies that can reveal changing habits of eating and drinking from the Roman world into the early medieval centuries.

At Viminacium, dining vessels help researchers piece together how Romans ate; a rare cake mould from Istria opens a smaller question about the food they prepared. Amphorae at Nauportus point towards movement and supply, while isotope analyses of early medieval burials in Croatia offer a different way to investigate diet. The contributors work across pottery, burial evidence and the occasional surprising object rather than relying on written accounts of ancient meals alone.