It's all a load of s**t! ;-)

[Imperial Dave]

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kristinakillgrove/2017/10/03/archaeologists-test-feces-from-roman-latrine-find-roundworm-and-dysentery/#73edfa3a35e6

it is an interesting if somewhat icky subject

[Patrick Waterson]

Perhaps surprisingly for the modern era, this article does not have a sociology angle; I would have expected conjecture about slaves being the least healthy element of the population.  Instead, we get - in essence - Galen vs the baths.

[Erpingham]

I think it would be difficult to tell the social status of the bath users just from their turds. 

[Imperial Dave]

I think it would be difficult to tell the social status of the bath users just from their turds.

there's a joke in there somewhere 

[Patrick Waterson]

I think it would be difficult to tell the social status of the bath users just from their turds.

But that is the whole point of scholarly scatology: to separate the fruit-eaters from the eaters of chaff, the devourers of choice cuts of meat from the gnawers of bones and imbibers of gristle stew.  Careers are built, or intended to be built, on the differentiation of rich man's and poor man's deposits and diseases as manifested in the contents of the cloaca maxima.  This, rather than illegible inscriptions and mutilated militaria, is the upcoming trend in archaeology.

[Imperial Dave]

or put another way, did you buy fresh high quality garum sauce or the cheaper dodger stuff from behind the forum? 

[Erpingham]

or put another way, did you buy fresh high quality garum sauce or the cheaper dodger stuff from behind the forum? 

I think by definition there is no such thing as "fresh" garum, just slightly more recent vintages

[Imperial Dave]

exactly 

[Dave Beatty]

I was on a dig a few years ago in SE Oregon and we always got excited when a coprolite was discovered...