The Busy Cemeteries of Late Antique Corinth: Geographic Identification of Migrants vs Locals, and the Characterization of a 6th – 8th Century City

In late antiquity, a series of historically documented invasions and natural and economic crises can be juxtaposed with increasing archaeological evidence for the strength of Eastern Mediterranean trade connections and the administrative and military hegemony of the Eastern Roman Empire. The abandonment of southern Greece to Slavic invaders, including the city of Corinth in the Peloponnese as attested in historic sources, is also contested by the growing evidence for continuity in land use. These historical and archaeological models of isolation versus economic and political connectivity bear directly on the amount and nature of migration during this time period. Though material culture is often used as a proxy for population movement and interactions, the presence of foreigners can be tested directly using the human skeletal remains from affected cities. In this dissertation, I use bioarchaeology to examine whether foreigners were present in Corinth, Greece and how they were integrated into existing social frameworks from the 6th-8th centuries AD. Anthropological mortuary analysis results in burial groups which contextualize graves within the existing social framework, and skeletal geochemistry discriminates among the skeletons of locals and those born in a variety of locations far from Corinth. I explore how mortuary behavior reflects social structure in Late Antique Corinth using statistical analyses. Diachronic change in mortuary behavior is shown to be gradual, and coincides with the timing of legislative and administrative changes in the Eastern Roman Empire. Factor analysis results in mortuary groups which reflect shifts in the geographic location of burials and correspond with differences in economic status and other social parameters for the communities using these burial areas. Stable isotopic ratios from human tooth enamel sampled from these groups identify and characterize foreigners within this mortuary landscape. Stable oxygen (δ^18O) and carbon (δ^13C) isotopic results display substantial variability. To discriminate among the possible geographic origins of these skeletons, I also analyzed a subset for radiogenic strontium isotopic ratios (^87Sr/^86Sr). Using hierarchical cluster analysis on paired δ the isotopic parameters of this sample. Two to three may represent differences in water source due to local mobility or dietary variability in the local population given the fact that δ^13C shows some diets incorporated a significant source of ^13C. Isotopic ratios also show significant migration occurred during this period. The childhood residence of at least three outliers was far from Corinth, and they likely originated in three separate geographic locations. One other group of migrants relatively enriched in ^18O may have traveled to Corinth from a single separate source population. Two outliers were interred together in one high status context which was the focus of considerable reuse and commemoration. The remaining migrants were buried in the same manner as local Corinthians, and some were present in high status mortuary contexts in two of the burial areas studied. These results are consistent with historical formulations of Corinth as an important provincial capital and a target for substantial population movement in late antiquity. However, they are incompatible with population turnover resulting from invasion. Migrants were acculturated into specific communities in this city, implying that integration was likely facilitated through established social organizations. Much of this migration was the result of a prolonged process linking Corinth to some other region, rather than a single, diaspora-like event. The presence of migrants from separate geographic origins, buried within high status contexts in a separate community, also implies that a small number of foreigners may also have been involved Corinth’s administration. Thus, the bioarchaeological evidence can be used in tandem with other archaeological material to interpret historical sources and provide a richer understanding of population interactions and the nature of the Late Antique city