Military communities in the Roman borderlands are increasingly understood as socially mixed and dynamic rather than homogeneous military enclaves. This study adds a biomolecular perspective through combined strontium, oxygen and carbon isotope analysis, and ancient DNA of 33 inhumed and 44 cremated individuals buried at Praetorium Agrippinae in modern-day Valkenburg (South Holland, the Netherlands).

What do you picture when you think of the Romans? Perhaps white men from Rome who are always fighting. Or an impenetrable frontier of walls, watchtowers and soldiers. After all, that is what the pictures in school textbooks looked like. But is this image actually accurate? That is what the team behind Constructing the Limes…