Last year I asked the rhetorical question “Are dead babies good evidence for a Roman brothel?”
My post rehearsed a number of reasons to be skeptical of the widely reported story about a Roman British site being described as a brothel. Centrally, I objected to the claim that Roman women had “little or no access to effective contraception”.
After reviewing the evidence that Roman women did have effective contraception, and the evidence that Roman demography provides that family planning was actually widespread, I wrote
But there is more than one way to imagine this villa populated with women who, although living in a house of some presumed luxury, did not themselves have the means to use contraception known to and employed by others in Roman Britain.
I then reviewed the archaeological writing about the site, which showed that it was a working farm in a rural area.
I left open the possibility that Dr. Jill Eyers was right in her conclusion, although I think it was clear that I disagreed with her, and especially, that I found problematic her quoted conclusion that
“The only explanation you keep coming back to is that it’s got to be a brothel”.
Now, Dr. Eyers is back in the news with renewed claims that the site has to have been a brothel. Which leads me to provide my own answer to my rhetorical question.
No. And no again.
The blog Rogue Classicism reviews the new discussion, which originates with a BBC News item promoting a BBC television program. Not news, really, but noteworthy because of the greater balance shown by the BBC reporter, whose article starts out
New research has cast doubt on the theory that 97 infants were killed at a Roman brothel in Buckinghamshire.
Which is no surprise to me, since a year ago I found the idea dubious. But there is one person who still finds it entirely convincing: Dr. Eyers, quoted as saying
“To be honest, when I first put this idea forward last year, it was really to get people talking and debating, but the more I look into this, the more convinced I am by my original brothel theory.”
The article says her continued studies of “the landscape around the villa site” have produced “a whole host of other evidence” supporting her suggestion, although the only data cited was plotting the locations of the burials and drawing the conclusion that all the infants were buried in a 50 year period, from 150-200 AD.
So, where does the “new research” come from to “cast doubt” on this still unconvincing speculation?
The BBC News article cites two lines of argument.
The biological studies of the infants recovered have now extended to include ancient DNA analysis by Keri Brown of the University of Manchester. This study found a normal sex ratio (about half boys and half girls). The BBC News article says this is unexpected in a brothel site, citing a bath-house in Ashkelon interpreted as a likely brothel, where the infants killed were boys.
Presumably, although they don’t go into the logic, the idea is girls can be raised to be sex workers, while boys would just be extra mouths to feed.
Curiously, though, they don’t drop the idea of infanticide, even though they note that infanticide sites usually do show selective sex bias, with girls more likely to be eliminated than boys. The logical conclusion would be that the deaths here don’t actually represent infanticide at all, since they mirror a normal birth ratio.
(Parenthetical note: I myself cannot support the assertion that infanticide normally affects girls more than boys historically. It seems to be true in the modern world. Any comments that can point me and readers to sources from antiquity accepted gratefully.)
The BBC News article doesn’t draw what I see as a logical connection between this sex ratio evidence and the other skeptical argument it cites, by the keeper of archaeology at the Buckinghamshire County Museum, Brett Thorn. He proposes an alternative interpretation that
“the site was a shrine and women went there to give birth, and get protection from the mother goddess during this dangerous time. The large number of babies who are buried there could be natural stillbirths, or children who died in labour.”
This independent suggestion is more consistent with the reported sex ratio. Thorn has curated a museum exhibit of objects from the site to support his argument, noting that
“There are a few significant religious objects from the site that indicate possible connections with a mother goddess cult.”
Despite the fact that this is clearly a case of sensationalizing a somewhat routine site for the sake of ratings, it seems like the development may be showing us the self-correcting nature of archaeology in action.
The original claims still are unconvincing. The objections I raised a year ago are not addressed, at least in the BBC News report, and new data are not consistent with expectations, while alternative models are being proposed that would better account for the known data.
So, “are dead babies good evidence for a Roman brothel?”
No.
Ancient Bodies, Ancient Lives 
LynneG
August 9, 2011
Thanks for your analysis – I entirely agree with your conclusions, and am even more delighted to hear about the independent interpretation by Thorn. Would be great to have more discussions of interpretations widely cited and promoted.
Judith Weingarten
August 10, 2011
“Everyone, even a poor man, raises a son; everyone, even a rich man, exposes a daughter” (Posidippus, Hermaphroditus, frag 11; but, as a comic poet, was he only kidding?). If memory serves, Pomeroy, “Goddesses, whores, wives, and slaves,” has many more examples.
Rosemary Joyce
August 10, 2011
Thank you Lynne, for the reinforcement; I also hope that this slight shift in BBC emphasis might mean we will see better discussions of how to support such an interpretation.
Judith, the quote is wonderful– and I should clarify that everything I have found about Roman and Classical archaeology supports the generalization about infanticide bias. What I cannot do is support through archaeological evidence the broadest assertion the BBC article makes– which they make without citing any sources– that there is always a bias toward female infanticide. Perhaps they only meant in the Classical world. But if not, as an anthropologist, my immediate thought was “I doubt this would be true in a matrilineal society”.
So, I think infanticide cross culturally is worth exploring more systematically– not something I am adding to my list but I hope someone does…
Crystal
August 11, 2011
Eleanor Scott in “Gender and the Archeology of Death” authored the article “Is Infanticide Always The Killing of the Female?” and she concludes “Usually no.” She notes that many researchers just *assume* that an infanticide is female and just *assume* any culture would want to kill its girls. This assumption cuts short real inquiry and research about death and gender.
Sarah Blaffer Hrdy puts the percentage of cultures who practice specific female infanticide at about 7% and connects it with connects it with cultures in which women cannot contribute much to their family nor inherit property.
So if at this site the sex ratios of the infants are equal, something else is obviously going on. It could still be infanticide, or perhaps stillbirths or neonatal deaths – the birth shrine idea is interesting. If it’s infanticide, perhaps the settlement had a large population of poor, working women who couldn’t rear an infant of either gender?
Rosemary Joyce
August 12, 2011
Thanks for the helpful reply. I am kicking myself for not thinking of Scott’s article– thanks!
In my original post on this case, I reviewed the archaeological research at the site, which shows it was probably a working farm with a lot of production. I noted there that this might imply a substantial working force including women, people not of the wealthy group for whom contraception was apparently easily available. So my suggestion then– a year ago– was that we might be looking at “a population of poor, working women who couldn’t rear an infant of either gender”– and I still think that is as likely as any other explanation. It is surely more likely than the brothel explanation– for which none of the categories of evidence that are recognized in other studies exists.
Robert Wimmers
September 5, 2011
Another theory could be the lady of the house was a trained midwife. This could also include preforming abortions. The birth shire would fit into that as well, although not as an exclusive religious reason to go there. Perhaps within the finds of the villa or in the graves of its inhabitants evidence may be found of a medica living there.
A large population of poor, working women ON A FARM who could not support a child? I think not. Then there was the fact that ancient Rome was a slave society, so even small childeren could and were sold.
Rosemary Joyce
September 5, 2011
Actually, the economic history does suggest that the laborers on a farm like this would have less ability to support children than the wealthier individuals. Not farmers who owned and controlled their land; laborers working for the owners. The point being: first, one should try to understand what kind of place this was, before imagining why there might be large numbers of infant dead.
The possibility that a midwife lived at this place is a better potential explanation than the brothel. But like the brothel, it cries out for explanation of why a more rural place would be the site for such activities.
A rural place understood as a shrine where women might go for reproductive health problems, to be addressed both physically (by a midwife) and spiritually, with a range of desired outcomes that were not sanctioned in Roman Britain including abortion, again seems a better explanation than the brothel– for which, as I noted in my first post, the actual kinds of evidence defined by scholars of brothels in the Roman world is entirely lacking.
Robert Wimmers
September 6, 2011
I think this requires insight into the structure of ancient rural Roman society in the provinces. A Roman villa was in my belief inhabited by those affiliated with the Roman hierarchy. Thus, the owners of a villa were likely Roman citizens (which is NOT the same as Romans). I have done some reading in the occurance of trained medica in the outskirts of the Roman empire. It would be very concievable for a woman/domina inhabiting a villa having recieved medical training if her interest lay there and thus functioning as a dokter/midwife for the much larger rural community outside the villa. This influence would have far transgressed the boundries of the estate. Compare this with the village doktor frequenting the many surrounding farms. There have been a good many gravefinds in the provinces (Ernst Kunzl, Medische Instrumente aus Sepulkralfunden der romischen Kaiserzeit) which contained medical instruments, some very clearly graves of women. Many were classes as midwives, but there is also good evidence for female surgeons.
A high mortality in infants / many dead babies would be consistent with the practice of women from near and far only seaking medical assistence if the pregnancy was in any way not progressing as it should. A skilled midwife would also attract more patients, as word would spread by those helped succesfully. A shrine nearbij would also be in keeping, either to give thanks or to ask for a favourable outcome.
Brett Thorn
September 15, 2011
Of course the media tends to broadcast only what it wants, and I’ve never claimed that the Mother Goddess shrine idea was anythign more than a theory. I wanted to point out that there are an awful lot of problems with the brothel idea, given the extremely rural nature of the site, a long way from any major centres of population, civilian or military, adn it had been portrayed on the first TV episode, last year, as a fact. The wonders of editing, of course..
The continued support from some of the people involved , for infanticide as a normal Roman practice (without any reference to the sensationalised aspect of a brothel) comes from the fact that almost all the neonate skeletons examined are full term, with no premature births, and very few older children (none in the 1st year, as would be expected from natural processes ). I suggested the possibility that this could be due to women who go into labour early, and have to travel, not making it to the site, and those who survive the birth would of course take the babies home with them. Purely supposition.
The major counter argument to the cult centre idea is that all the textual evidence I know of from classical sources suggests that women gave birth at home, and the midwife/doctor came to them. Of course, Yewden doesnt seem to follow the norms- otherwise we wouldnt be talking about it.
Rosemary Joyce
September 15, 2011
Thanks for the comment. I understood your argument as you intended it– as an alternative hypothesis that accounts for the data, showing that the claims that the brothel/infanticide argument is the only one that makes sense should be re-examined. For me, reading the story last year, the most interesting thing was precisely the rural nature of the site, and the degree to which it lacks any of the recognized signs of known brothels.
Kristina Killgrove (@DrKillgrove)
January 24, 2014
Just FYI – A new article on DNA analysis of the skeletons suggests that, no, these aren’t “brothel babies.” Here’s LiveScience on it – http://www.livescience.com/42834-ancient-roman-infanticide.html.