Townfolk lived longer in Romain Britain

An analysis of more than 300 remains from Roman Britain suggests that those who lived in towns lived longer than those who did not.

“The assumption is always that if you’re living in the countryside it’s healthier,” says Rebecca Redfern of the Museum of London, who headed the investigation. “But we found that urban dwellers were more likely to reach old age than their rural counterparts.”

Redfern and her colleagues examined bones from 344 individuals buried between 1 and 500 AD at 19 sites in what is now Dorset in southern England. Of the skeletons, 150 came from nine rural cemeteries, and the remainder from urban cemeteries in modern-day Dorchester, set up as Durnovaria by the Romans in the first century AD.

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Story: Andy Coghlan, NewScientist | Photo: J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles/Corbis