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.
Thousands gathered across New Zealand yesterday to celebrate the signing of the country’s founding document and some called for an end to government policies that critics say erode the rights promised to the indigenous Maori population. As the sun rose on the dawn service at Waitangi where the Treaty of Waitangi was first signed between the British Crown and Maori chiefs in 1840, some community leaders called on the government to honor promises made 185 years ago. The call was repeated at peaceful rallies that drew several hundred people later in the day. “This government is attacking tangata whenua [indigenous people] on all
The administration of US President Donald Trump has appointed to serve as the top public diplomacy official a former speech writer for Trump with a history of doubts over US foreign policy toward Taiwan and inflammatory comments on women and minorities, at one point saying that "competent white men must be in charge." Darren Beattie has been named the acting undersecretary for public diplomacy and public affairs, a senior US Department of State official said, a role that determines the tone of the US' public messaging in the world. Beattie requires US Senate confirmation to serve on a permanent basis. "Thanks to
UNDAUNTED: Panama would not renew an agreement to participate in Beijing’s Belt and Road project, its president said, proposing technical-level talks with the US US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday threatened action against Panama without immediate changes to reduce Chinese influence on the canal, but the country’s leader insisted he was not afraid of a US invasion and offered talks. On his first trip overseas as the top US diplomat, Rubio took a guided tour of the canal, accompanied by its Panamanian administrator as a South Korean-affiliated oil tanker and Marshall Islands-flagged cargo ship passed through the vital link between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. However, Rubio was said to have had a firmer message in private, telling Panama that US President Donald Trump
‘IMPOSSIBLE’: The authors of the study, which was published in an environment journal, said that the findings appeared grim, but that honesty is necessary for change Holding long-term global warming to 2°C — the fallback target of the Paris climate accord — is now “impossible,” according to a new analysis published by leading scientists. Led by renowned climatologist James Hansen, the paper appears in the journal Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development and concludes that Earth’s climate is more sensitive to rising greenhouse gas emissions than previously thought. Compounding the crisis, Hansen and colleagues argued, is a recent decline in sunlight-blocking aerosol pollution from the shipping industry, which had been mitigating some of the warming. An ambitious climate change scenario outlined by the UN’s climate