[Health status and life style in Castel Malnome (Rome, I-II cent. A. D.)]. / Attività lavorative e condizioni di vita della comunità di Castel Malnome (Roma, I-II sec. D.C.).

The necropolis of Castel Malnome, chronologically framed between the I and II century AD, is located in the vicinity of Ponte Galeria (Rome), nearby the via Portuense. The excavation of the funerary site has allowed the collection of 292 inhumations, referred to the lower social classes and for the most part adult males. Regarding the funerary ritual, only the 42.8% of the graves had a tiles cover, while about one third provided grave goods. The field analysis shows that almost all the burials are primaries, and is not possible to highlight a main position of the inhumated individuals. The laboratory analysis, till today carried out on 100 individuals, shows a high degree of skeletal robustness and of occupational markers due to heavy work load (inflammation, muscle-skeletal trauma, fractures, osteoarthritis, enthesopathies). The recording of oral pathologies and aspecific stresses, in order to obtain information about the health status of the population, shows a very high frequency of caries mainly related to poor dental hygiene, and of enamel hypoplasia.

A subject with abnormally short stature from Imperial Rome.

In spite of the rich iconographic and literary documentation from ancient sources, the skeletal evidence concerning individuals of abnormally short stature in the Greco-Roman world is scarce. The necropolis of Viale della Serenissima/Via Basiliano in Rome, mostly referable to the II century AD, recently yielded the skeleton of an individual characterized by proportionate short stature, gracile features suggesting female gender, and delayed epiphysial closure, associated with full maturation of the permanent dentition. These characteristics could be compatible with the phenotype associated with female gonadal dysgenesis. The skeletal individual described here, although poorly preserved, represents the first evidence of a paleopathologic condition affecting skeletal growth documented for the population of ancient Rome.