Lecture – Food Miles in the Past: where did the Roman army in Northern Britain get their food?

Food Miles in the Past:  where did the Roman army in Northern Britain get their food?

Speaker:

Dr Sue Stallibrass

Date:

19th November 2024

The Romans managed to feed their army of occupation in Britain for three and a half centuries.  This was an incredible feat of administration and organisation.  Sue’s seminar to the Society was full of fascinating facts, figures and evidence for how they might have achieved this.

On the edge of the Empire, in cold, damp northern Britain, agricultural options were limited.  The Romans imported higher quality bread into their ports in South Shields and possibly Lancaster.  However, they also had to make the most of what the local land could produce.  This involved a variety of sources for reliability, such as balancing the cultivation of high-quality, bread wheat (which didn’t particularly like the climate around the northern Roman settlements), with lower-quality but dependable varieties of wheat, such as spelt.

There were also options for meat and animal products.  The locals and the auxiliary troops favoured slower-growing cattle.  Whereas the legionaries preferred pork, which could be produced quickly from large, rapidly-growing litters of pigs.

Sue took us through many fascinating examples of how the Romans solved the problem of feeding such a large number of soldiers with evidence from the famous Vindolanda tablets, to animal bones and more modern texts on logistics.

 

About the speaker

Sue got into archaeology as a teenager with a local society and just carried on digging and field-walking from there.  She specialised in animal remains and has a life-long interest in natural history.

For 22 years she worked as the regional science advisor for NW England for Historic England  She retired in 2021, giving her more time for research, fieldwork and exploring archaeological landscapes.