Isotopic profiling of diet, health, and mobility amongst the non-adult Gepid population buried at the Archuid Cemetery in Transylvania, Romania (4th –7th centuries AD)

The Gepids were a migratory, barbarian
population that inhabited the Carpathian
Mountain basin from the 3
rd
to the 7
th
century
(AD) in what is now Transylvania, Romania. The
Gepids were subsumed into the histories of other
clans, leaving very little reliable information
about how this population lived and died. It is
hypothesized that the continued
migration/emigration would affect the Gepid’s
ability to access adequate nutrition, resulting in
skeletal evidence of nutritional stress and/or
metabolic. The Archuid cemetery (Transylvania,
Romania), was occupied by the Gepids from the
4
th
-7
th
centuries AD, was excavated by Romanian
archaeologists (1979-1982), unearthing 30
individuals.