Multi-proxy data from Imola (Northern Italy) reveal diverse trajectories in human lifeways following the collapse of the Western Roman Empire

Abstract Late Antiquity in the Western Roman Empire is widely recognized as a period of political and economic instability. The multidisciplinary study presented here combines isotopic, physical anthropology, radiocarbon dating and ZooMS analyses to examine potential impacts of such instability in aspects of everyday life in the Northern Italian town of Imola (Emilia-Romagna region). We investigated diachronic trends in diet and spatial mobility for 51 individuals from urban cemeteries in Imola using oxygen, strontium, carbon and nitrogen isotopic analyses. Oxygen and strontium isotopic results from tooth enamel identified non-local individuals within the Late Antiquity Imola population sample. An increase in both δ13C and δ15N human bone collagen values from the Late Roman to the Medieval period was detected, suggesting that dietary shifts were likely linked to environmental changes affecting agricultural strategies, as well as to broader sociopolitical transformations following the collapse of the Roman Empire.