Living Precariously in the Roman World : A Social Archaeology of Inequality

Van Oyen, Astrid

Cambridge University Press（2026/05発売）

• 製本 Paperback:紙装版/ペーパーバック版／ページ数 350 p.
• 言語 ENG
• 商品コード 9781009726061

Full Description

Literary and archaeological evidence suggests that the Roman world was profoundly unequal. What did this mean in material terms for people at the bottom of the social hierarchy? Astrid Van Oyen here investigates the lived experiences of non-elite people in the Roman world through qualitative analysis of archaeological data. Supported by theoretical insights from the material turn, development economics, and feminist studies, her study of precarity cuts across the experiences of workers, the enslaved, women, and conquered populations. Van Oyen considers how precarity shaped these people's relation to production, consumption, time, place, and community. Drawing on empirically rich archaeological data from Roman Italy, Britain, Gaul, and the Iberian Peninsula, Van Oyen challenges long-held assumptions and generates new insights into the lives of the non-elite population. Her novel approaches will inspire future studies, enabling archaeologists, historians, and anthropologists to retrieve the unheard voices of the past.

Contents

Introduction; 1. Having: consumption beyond use; 2. Tinkering: a skill spectrum; 3. Anticipating: uncertain futures; 4. Staying: troubled relations to place; 5. Caring: horizontal communities; Conclusion; Appendix: epigraphic attestations of gladiators in Nîmes; References.