Flocking to ancient Rome

Premodern cities depended upon a constant influx of migrants to keep up their populations. Quantification of this migration pattern for ancient cities isn't easy, but Dienekes' Anthropology Blog links to what appears to be a pathbreaking study for the town of Portus Romae:

This is the first quantitative assessment of population mobility in Classical antiquity. This study demonstrates that migration was not limited to predominantly single adult males, as suggested by historical sources, but rather a complex phenomenon involving families. We hypothesize that migrants most likely came from higher elevations to the East and North of Rome. One individual with a higher delta(18)O value may have come (as a child) from an area isotopically similar to North Africa.

Posted by David on January 30, 2007 1:01 PM