Population densities in Roman-Age Europe?

[Marja Erwin marja-e@riseup.net [gothic-l]]

Can anyone recommend studies of the population densities of parts of Roman-Age Europe, especially outside the Empire?

I’ve been looking around, particularly wrt the Goths and the Alamanni, but had very little success. Studies starting from field survey would be best, but studies starting from the sizes of the leading towns would be something concrete too, and only counting the x/area leading settlements avoids issues with whether small towns were agricultural settlements or not.

Heather & Matthews 1991 give the sizes of the leading Chernyakhov towns between the Pruth and Dniestr, which works out to 60 hectares for the largest 2 towns in 46,000 km2.

As a reference point, Millett 1990 gives the sizes of the leading Roman British towns, which works out to 496 hectares for the largest 6 towns in about 150,000 km2. I would pair some bringing a total of about 538 hectares. He estimates somewhere around 3.7 million, I’d probably suggest about 3 million there.

Anyway, a similar relationship between the leading towns and the total population would suggest somewhere between 300 thousand and 400 thousand people between the Prut and Dniestr, and between 6 and 8 per km2. But better evidence for more areas would be helpful.

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