It was likely a challenging existence for Roman soldiers tasked with guarding Hadrian’s Wall during the third century CE. Poet W.H. Auden captured the severe conditions in his composition “Roman Wall Blues,” where a soldier describes enduring the relentless wet and cold, plagued by lice and a persistent cold. Recent research, published in the journal Parasitology, adds further evidence of their discomfort, pointing to chronic nausea and diarrhea stemming from parasitic infections.
In recent years, archaeologists have gained substantial insights by examining intestinal parasite remains in ancient feces. For example, in 2022, an analysis of soil samples from a 7th-century BCE villa near Jerusalem revealed the presence of parasitic eggs from whipworm, beef/pork tapeworm, roundworm, and pinworm—the earliest record of roundworm and pinworm in ancient Israel.
Later that year, research conducted jointly by the University of Cambridge and the University of British Columbia involved analyzing residue from a ceramic pot found at a 5th-century CE Roman villa in Sicily. The identification of intestinal worm eggs indicated that this pot, dating back 1,500 years, was likely used as a chamber pot.
Previous studies have compared fecal parasites from hunter-gatherer and farming communities, which highlighted significant dietary changes and shifts in settlement patterns and social organization alongside the advent of agriculture. The new research focused on sediment samples from sewer drains at the Roman fort at Vindolanda, located just south of Hadrian’s Wall.
Historically, the site was noted by William Camden in a 1586 treatise. Interest in the area grew over the following two centuries, with discoveries including a military bathhouse (1702) and an altar (1715). Another altar discovered in 1914 confirmed the fort's name as Vindolanda. Significant archaeological excavations began in the 1930s. The site is renowned for the Vindolanda tablets, some of the oldest known handwritten documents in the UK, and the 2023 discovery of an artifact resembling an ancient Roman dildo, although some argue it might have served as a drop spindle for spinning yarn.