Incense burners are frequently excavated at Roman period sites, attesting to acts of combustion within domestic ritual practices, but what was burnt is still uncertain. Here, the authors use microscopy and spectrometry to analyse burnt residues contained within two censers from domestic contexts in Pompeii and a nearby villa. Their results indicate that woody plants were burnt in both censers, either as fuel or offerings, alongside stone fruit or laurel plants and possibly wine or grapes, while traces of Burseraceae resins, originating from Asia or sub-Saharan Africa, provide the first archaeological evidence of incense offerings in the Pompeian domestic cult.

Despite contemporary relevance in understanding how cities historically overcame demographic, social and economic constraints imposed by the lack of clean, fresh water, the value of estimating aqueduct delivery rates and their potential relationship with population size in the Roman Empire remains uncertain. Here, the authors use settlement scaling theory to examine recent statistics for city size and aqueduct capacity, revealing a systematic but sublinear relationship between these variables, whereby water supply increased at a slower rate than population size. Far from merely ostentatious displays of power, aqueducts were carefully planned to ensure an adequate supply of clean and fresh water.

The history of games is obscured by our inability to recognise indicators of play in the archaeological record. Lines incised on a piece of rounded limestone found at the Roman site of Coriovallum in Heerlen, The Netherlands, evoke a board game yet do not reflect the grid of any game known today. Here, the results of use-wear analysis are used to inform artificial intelligence-driven simulations based on permutations of rules from historic Northern European games. Disproportionate wear along specific lines favours the rules of blocking games, potentially extending the time depth and regional use of this game type.

The Roman occupation of England (AD 43–410), characterised by urbanisation and militarisation, is generally understood to have had a negative impact on population health. Yet our understanding of associated socioeconomic changes is hindered by the comparatively limited analysis of inhumations from the preceding Iron Age. Deploying the DOHaD hypothesis, this study examines negative health markers in the skeletons of 274 adult females of childbearing age and 372 non-adults aged below 3.5 years from Iron Age and Roman contexts, revealing the long-lasting negative influence of urbanisation but with a more limited impact in rural communities implying continuation of cultural norms.

The Romans were among the first societies to extensively exploit fish resources, establishing large-scale salting and preservation plants where small pelagic fish were fermented to produce sauces such as garum. Here, the authors demonstrate that, despite being crushed and exposed to acidic conditions, usable DNA can be recovered from ichthyological residues at the bottom of fish-salting vats. At third-century AD Adro Vello (O Grove), Galicia, they confirm the use of European sardines (Sardina pilchardus) and move beyond morphology to explore population range and admixture and reveal the potential of this overlooked archaeological resource.

The Roman army was a vast military machine that demanded huge amounts of material and complex supply mechanisms. A 14kg hoard of mail armour from near the Roman legionary fortress of Bonn, Germany, offers insight into the organisation of recycling and repair on Rome's northern frontier. Computed tomography reveals there are at least four garments and suggests a likely date. The authors explore the hoard's context and motivations for its deposition and non-retrieval, arguing it formed a collection of ‘donor’ mail for repairing other mail garments. Its discovery in a settlement outside the military fortress indicates the involvement of local craftworkers. The settlement was abandoned in the mid-third century AD.

Religious practice in the Roman world involved diverse rituals and knowledge. Scholarly studies of ancient religion increasingly emphasise the experiential aspects of these practices, highlighting multisensory and embodied approaches to material culture and the dynamic construction of religious experiences and identities. In contrast, museum displays typically frame religious material culture around its iconographic or epigraphic significance. The author analyses 23 UK museum displays to assess how religion in Roman Britain is presented and discusses how museums might use research on ‘lived ancient religion’ to offer more varied and engaging narratives of religious practices that challenge visitors’ perceptions of the period.

In 2023, during the underwater archaeological documentation of the port of Puteoli, a submerged Nabataean temple was located and partially investigated. The authors present the first results of these new research activities, including a reconstruction of part of the building and details of two altars and some inscribed slabs.

The remains of black henbane (Hyoscyamus niger) are relatively common at archaeological sites as it grows naturally around settlements in north-western Europe. All parts of the plant may be used as a medicine or a narcotic but its natural prevalence in built environments makes it difficult to interpret any intentionality behind its presence in the archaeological record. Evidence of the deliberate collection and use of black henbane seeds in the Roman Netherlands is presented here for the first time. Examination of Classical texts and interrogation of the archaeobotanical data allow the authors to place the discovery at Houten-Castellum of a hollowed bone containing hundreds of black henbane seeds within the context of the wider Roman understanding of the plant and its properties.

Wine was deeply embedded in all aspects of Roman life and its role in society, culture and the economy has been much studied. Ancient Roman texts and archaeological research provide valuable insights into viticulture and the manufacture, trade and consumption of wine but little is known of the sensory nature of this prized commodity. Here, the authors offer a novel oenological approach to the study of Roman dolia through their comparison with modern Georgian qvevri and associated wine-production techniques. Far from being mundane storage vessels, dolia were precisely engineered containers whose composition, size and shape all contributed to the successful production of diverse wines with specific organoleptic characteristics.

During a pioneering aerial survey of the Near East in the 1920s, Father Antoine Poidebard recorded hundreds of fortified military buildings that traced the eastern frontier of the Roman Empire. Based on their distribution, Poidebard proposed that these forts represented a line of defence against incursions from the east. Utilising declassified images from the CORONA and HEXAGON spy satellite programmes, the authors report on the identification of a further 396 forts widely distributed across the northern Fertile Crescent. The addition of these forts questions Poidebard's defensive frontier thesis and suggests instead that the structures played a role in facilitating the movement of people and goods across the Syrian steppe.

A 3D reconstruction of the principia at Novae (Bulgaria) allows modelling of the inscribed statues, altars and building stones as they used to look. By restoring the inscribed monuments to their original contexts, the model means that Roman military religiosity and its messages can be analysed in the legionary headquarters.

How did the Roman Empire supply and maintain its frontier garrisons? What was the impact on populations and landscapes of conquered territories? The Feeding the Roman Army in Britain project will answer these questions by establishing how soldiers were provisioned and how frontiers operated as economic as well as militarised zones.

The elites of many past cultures have sought to romanticise agricultural labour—often the source of their wealth and hence their status. A recently discovered winery at the Villa of the Quintilii on the Via Appia Antica, near Rome, provides only the second known example from the Graeco-Roman world of an opulent wine production complex built to facilitate vinicultural ‘spectacle’. The authors present the architectural and decorative form of the winery and illustrate how the annual vintage was reimagined as ‘theatrical’ performance. Dating to the mid third century AD, the complex illuminates how ancient elites could fuse utilitarian function with ostentatious luxury to fashion their social and political status.

The anaerobic conditions at the Roman fort of Vindolanda, close to Hadrian's Wall in northern Britain, have famously preserved a variety of finds made of organic materials, including wooden writing tablets and a pair of leather boxing gloves. Here, the authors re-examine a wooden object originally recovered in 1992, re-interpreting the find as a large, disembodied phallus. Stone and metal phalli are known from across the Roman world, but the Vindolanda example is the first wooden phallus to be recognised. Combining evidence for potential use-wear with a review of other archaeological and contextual information, the authors consider various possible interpretations of the function and significance of the Vindolanda phallus during the second century AD.