Ancient Greece produced the earliest records of democracy, Western philosophy — and, it turns out, lead pollution.
Researchers studying sediment cores recovered from mainland Greece and the Aegean Sea have found the oldest known evidence of lead pollution in the environment dating to about 5,200 years ago.
That is 1,200 years older than the previous earliest recorded lead pollution, which was found in a peatbog in Serbia.
In antiquity, lead was released into the atmosphere as a byproduct of smelting ore for copper and silver. The toxic metal later condensed as dust and settled onto the soil.
“Silver was used for jewelry, for special objects — but it wasn’t found in a pure state,” but mined in ore combined with lead, said Heidelberg University archeologist Joseph Maran, coauthor of a new study published on Thursday in Communications Earth and Environment.
The site with the earliest signs of lead contamination is in northeastern Greece, near the island of Thasos. Prior archeological evidence suggests Thasos was one of the region’s most significant sites for silver mining and metalwork, Maran said.
“Lead released from smelting is the world’s first form of toxic or industrial pollution,” said Yale historian Joseph Manning, who was not involved in the study.
The researchers found that levels of lead contamination remained fairly low and localized in ancient Greece, considered the cradle of European civilization, throughout the Bronze Age, the Classical period and the Hellenistic period.
However, about 2,150 years ago, the researchers detected “a very strong and abrupt increase” in lead emissions caused by human activities across Greece, said coauthor Andreas Koutsodendris at Heidelberg University.
Around that time, in 146 BC, the Roman army conquered the Greek peninsula, transforming the region’s society and economy. As Roman trade, colonies and shipping expanded across the Mediterranean Sea and Black Sea, demand for silver coins grew rapidly, requiring smelting that released lead, Koutsodendris said.
Later the Roman Empire used lead for tableware and for construction, including pipes.
Previous research —including an analysis of ice cores from Greenland — had detected high levels of lead across much of the Northern Hemisphere during Roman times.
However, the new study adds a more “specific and local picture to how lead levels changed,” said Nathan Chellman, an environmental scientist at the University of Nevada, Reno, who was not involved in the research.
ROCKY RELATIONS: The figures on residents come as Chinese tourist numbers drop following Beijing’s warnings to avoid traveling to Japan The number of Chinese residents in Japan has continued to rise, even as ties between the two countries have become increasingly fractious, data released on Friday showed. As of the end of December last year, the number of Chinese residents had increased by 6.5 percent from the previous year to 930,428. Chinese people accounted for 22.6 percent of all foreign residents in Japan, making them by far the largest group, Japanese Ministry of Justice data showed. Beijing has criticized Tokyo in increasingly strident terms since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last year suggested that a military conflict around Taiwan could
A retired US colonel behind a privately financed rocket launch site in the Dominican Republic sees the project as a response to China’s dominance of the space race in Latin America. Florida-based Launch on Demand is slated to begin building a US$600 million facility in a remote region near the border with Haiti late this year. The project is designed to meet surging demand for the heavy-lift rockets needed to put clusters of satellites into orbit. It is also an answer to China’s growing presence in the region, said CEO Burton Catledge, a former commander of the US Air Force’s 45th Operations
Germany is considering Australia’s Ghost Bat robot fighter as it looks to select a combat drone to modernize its air force, German Minister of Defense Boris Pistorius said yesterday. Germany has said it wants to field hundreds of uncrewed fighter jets by 2029, and would make a decision soon as it considers a range of German, European and US projects developing so-called “collaborative combat aircraft.” Australia has said it will integrate the Ghost Bat, jointly developed by Boeing Australia and the Royal Australian Air Force, into its military after a successful weapons test last year. After inspecting the Ghost Bat in Queensland yesterday,
A pro-Iran hacking group claimed to breach FBI Director Kash Patel’s personal e-mail inbox and posted some of the contents online. The e-mails provided by the hacking group include travel details, correspondence with leasing agents in Washington and global entry, and loyalty account numbers. The e-mail address the hackers claim to have compromised has been previously tied to Patel’s personal details, and the leaked e-mails contain photos of Patel and others, in addition to correspondence with family members and colleagues. “The FBI is aware of malicious actors targeting Director Patel’s personal email information,” the agency said in a statement on
RSS