A new study suggests that lead pollution during the Roman Empire's golden age caused a significant drop in IQ across Europe. Researchers analyzed ice cores and modern evidence to estimate the impact of lead exposure on the population.
During the golden age of Roman imperialism, air pollution grew so inescapable that researchers now suspect it caused widespread neurological damage over much of Europe, including most of what is now Great Britain. Based on ice-core records from the Arctic, atmospheric levels of toxic lead spiked between 100 BCE and 200 CE as the Roman Empire began mining and smelting metals like never before.
Using modern evidence of lead pollution and its health effects, the international team calculates that lead exposure in the Roman golden age could have caused a population-wide drop in IQ of about 2.5 to 3 points per person. And that goes for most of the Roman Empire, including its provinces of Gaul, northwestern Africa, Iberia, and Britannia. '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,''All Europeans, their livestock, and agricultural fields were exposed for centuries to background atmospheric lead pollution resulting from the large-scale mining and processing of lead/silver ores that underpinned the Greek and Roman economies,'the international team of researchers, including climatologists and epidemiologists who hail from institutions in Denmark, the UK, the US, Canada, Austria, and Switzerland. 'This background lead pollution in air and soil may have been the most significant exposure route in rural, non-elite populations.'In the last forty years, lead exposure has thankfully plummeted. Now that leaded gasoline is restricted, along with numerous lead-based products, children in the US have a blood lead level of aroundIn Roman times, children probably had on average a blood lead level of 3.4 µg/dl, according to the current study's models. Given this is a mean calculation, it's likely many children had concentrations of lead that put them at great risk of neurological impairmen
Lead Pollution Roman Empire IQ Health Effects Environmental Impact
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