New research reveals that lead pollution from ancient Roman silver smelters likely caused a significant drop in average IQ among the population. The study, using ice cores from Greenland as a historical record, highlights the widespread impact of industrial pollution even 2,000 years ago.
In ancient Rome, toxic lead was so pervasive in the air that it most likely dropped the average person’s IQ by 2.5 to 3 points, new research suggests. The study, published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Science s, amplifies long-standing questions about what role, if any, lead pollution played in the empire’s downfall.
The authors linked lead found in ice samples from Greenland to ancient Roman silver smelters and determined that the incredible amount of background pollution they produced would have affected much of Europe. Using studies about lead exposure in modern society, the researchers were able to determine how much lead most likely ended up in Romans’ bloodstreams and the effects that would have had on their cognition. Lead, a powerful neurotoxin, remains a public health menace today. There is no safe amount to have in your body. Exposure is associated with learning disabilities, reproductive problems, mental health issues and increased risk of hearing loss, among other effects. The researchers behind the new study said the findings are the first clear example of widespread industrial pollution in history. “Human or industrial activities 2,000 years ago were already having continental-scale impacts on human health,” said a lead author of the paper, Joe McConnell, a climate and environmental scientist at the Desert Research Institute, a nonprofit research campus in Reno, Nevada. “Roman-era lead pollution is the earliest unambiguous example of human impacts on the environment.” The story of the ancient pollution was buried in the Greenland ice sheet. The chemical composition of ice there and in other polar regions can yield key clues about what past environments were like. As snow falls, melts and compresses to form layers of ice, the chemicals trapped inside offer a kind of timeline. “You built up this layer cake year after year of environmental history,” McConnell sai
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