Summary: An analysis of Arctic ice cores reveals that direct waste during the reign of the Roman Empire was thought to have contributed to a 2-3 point IQ reduction across Europe. Gold mining and smelting, which released a lot of direct into the environment, contributed to the waste.
Utilizing advanced ambient models and lead isotopes, researchers compared pollution levels to establish connections between mental decline and direct exposure. These findings provide insight into the international effects of environmental contamination and highlight the impact of business activity on human health for a long time.
Important Facts:
- Mental Impact: Head publicity during the Roman Empire good reduced Western IQs by 2-3 points.
- Pollution Supply: Silver mining and smelting released over 500 gigatons of direct into the environment.
- Traditional Highs: During the Roman period, Arctic direct pollution reached levels that were only ever exceeded in the 20th century.
Origin: Desert Research Institute
Direct exposure has a variety of negative effects on human health, with yet relatively low levels having an impact on children’s cognitive development.
Prior to the Roman Empire, DRI scientists used atmospheric waste records preserved in Arctic snow cores to recognize periods of head pollution. A new study expands on this discovery and examines how this pollution might have affected the German population.
The study, published Jan. 6th in , Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ( PNAS ), examined three ice core records to identify lead pollution levels in the Arctic between 500 BCE through 600 CE.
The research focuses on the roughly 200-year-high Dynasty known as the Romana; this period spans the increase of the Roman Republic through the fall of the Roman Empire. The research team identified mining and smelting operations throughout Europe as the most good sources of pollution during this time using lead isotopes.
Therefore, using sophisticated computer modeling, advanced computer modeling, created maps of meteorological lead pollution levels throughout Europe. The research team also identified good decreases in IQ amounts of at least 2 to 3 points among the German community in addition to study linking direct exposure to mental decline.
This is the first investigation to reverse an ice core’s waste report to determine atmospheric levels of pollution and then examine its effects, says lead author and research professor of hydrology at DRI Joe McConnell.
” The idea that we can do this for 2, 000 years ago is pretty novel and exciting”.
Past records preserved in ice
McConnell ‘s , Ice Core Laboratory , at DRI has spent decades examining ice cores from places like Greenland and Antarctica, where sheets of ice have built up over millennia. Using enormous drills, they painstakingly extract columns of ice as much as 11, 000 feet (3, 400 meters ) long, reaching more distant depths of Earth’s history with each inch.
McConnell’s team creates precise timelines using records of well-dated volcanic eruptions, which stamp the ice record like postcards from the past. Lead and other pollutants can be used to interpret mining and industrial activity, while gas bubbles trapped in the ice provide insight into the atmosphere of earlier times.
More than 20 years ago, McConnell began using techniques to create extremely detailed lead records in more recent history. Archaeologists and historians approached him in order to use these novel methods to study the Roman period and find solutions to lingering historical questions when they learned of this work.
The resulting study” changed our understanding of the era by uncovering precise correlations between historical events like population declines associated with periodic plagues and pandemics,” says coauthor and ancient historian Andrew Wilson of Oxford University.
A Growing Awareness of the Implications of Lead Pollution
Silver mining, where the lead-rich mineral galena was melted down to extract silver, was largely the cause of ancient lead pollution. This process produced thousands of ounces of lead, the majority of which was released into the atmosphere for every ounce of silver that was obtained.
In the 20th , century, lead pollution predominantly came from the emissions of vehicles burning leaded gasoline. Researchers have tracked the sharp decline in lead in human blood following the passage of the Clean Air Act in the United States in 1970.
However, the nationwide exposure,  , particularly for children born between 1950 and 1985, allowed scientists to track lead’s impact on health and cognitive development.
Epidemiologists and medical experts are now more and more aware of how detrimental lead is to human development as lead pollution has decreased over the past 30 years, according to McConnell.
In adults, high levels of lead exposure are linked to infertility, anemia, memory loss, cardiovascular disease, cancer, and reduced immune response, among other impacts. In children, even low levels of exposure have been connected to reduced IQ, concentration challenges, and reduced academic success.
A blood lead level of 3. 5 g/dl is considered the threshold for medical intervention for children by the U. S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ( CDC ), but they have stated that there is no level of lead exposure without risk.
According to study coauthor Nathan Chellman, assistant research professor of snow and ice hydrology at DRI,” Lead is known to have a wide range of human health impacts, but we chose to focus on cognitive decline.”
” An IQ reduction of 2 to 3 points doesn’t sound like much, but when you apply that to essentially the entire European population, it’s kind of a big deal”.
The study discovered that atmospheric lead pollution started during the Iron Age and reached its highest point in the late 2nd and early 2nd centuries BCE, at the height of the Roman Republic. It then declined sharply during the 1st , century BCE, during the crisis of the Roman Republic, before increasing around 15 BCE following the rise of the Roman Empire.
Lead pollution remained high through the Antonine Plague, which had a significant impact on the Roman Empire, between 165 and 180 CE. Lead pollution in the Arctic exceeded the high levels of the Roman Empire’s continued high levels until the High Middle Ages in the early 2nd millennium CE.
During the nearly 200-year reign of the Roman Empire, more than 500 kilotons of lead were released into the atmosphere, according to the study.
The understanding gained from this study demonstrates how “humans have been affecting their health for thousands of years through industrial activity,” according to McConnell, although ice core records show Arctic lead pollution was 40-fold higher during the highest historical peak in the early 1970s.
About this news about neuroscience and cognition
Author: Elyse DeFranco
Source: Desert Research Institute
Contact: Elyse DeFranco – Desert Research Institute
Image: The image is credited to Neuroscience News
Original Research: Closed access.
” Pan-European atmospheric lead pollution, enhanced blood lead levels, and cognitive decline from Roman-era mining and smelting” by Joe McConnell et al. PNAS
Abstract
Pan-European atmospheric lead pollution, enhanced blood lead levels, and cognitive decline from Roman-era mining and smelting
Ancient texts and archaeological evidence suggest that a significant amount of lead was exposed during antiquity that had a potential impact on human health.
Although there were numerous ways to expose people to lead, including glazed tableware, paint, cosmetics, and even involuntary ingestion, the nonelite, rural majority of the population may have been the result of background air pollution from the silver and lead ores that underpinned the Roman economy.
Here, we determined potential health effects of this air pollution using Arctic ice core measurements of Roman-era lead pollution, atmospheric modeling, and modern epidemiology-based relationships between air concentrations, blood lead levels ( BLLs ), and cognitive decline.
Findings suggest air lead concentrations exceeded 150 ng/m3 , near metallurgical emission sources, with average enhancements of >, 1.0 ng/m3 , over Europe during the Pax Romana apogee of the Roman Empire.
The outcome was a blood lead increase of about 2.4 g/dl in young children above an estimated Neolithic background of 1.0 g/dl, leading to widespread cognitive decline, including a 2.5-to-3 point decline in intelligence quotient throughout the Roman Empire.
