WASHINGTON (AP) – Ancient Greece produced the first records of democracy and Western philosophy – as it became clear.
Researchers who study the nuclei of sediments that recovered from the mainland Greece and the Aegean Sea have found the oldest evidence of lead pollution in the environment dating back about 5200 years.
This is 1,200 years of the first in the first registered registry pollution, which was found in Peatbog in Serbia.
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In ancient times, bullets were fired in the atmosphere as a secondary result of the smelting ore of copper and silver. The toxic metal was later intensified as a dust and settled on the soil.
“Silver was used in jewelry, for special things-but it was not found in pure condition,” said the archaeologist at Heidelberg University, Joseph Maran, a co-author of a new study. Publishing Thursday In Earth and Environment Communications.
The site is located with early pollution marks in northeastern Greece, near TASOS. Maran said that previous archaeological evidence indicates that TASOS was one of the most important sites of the region in silver mining and metal works.
“The lead launched from Smelting is the first form of toxic or industrial pollution in the world,” said Yale Joseph Maning historian, who was not involved in the study.
The researchers found that lead pollution levels remained low and somewhat translated in ancient Greece, which is the cradle of European civilization, throughout the Bronze Age, the classic period and the Hellenistic period. This classic period is famous for the Athenian democracy, Socrates and Plato, and the Hellenistic period witnessed the Greek cultural influence its peak throughout the Mediterranean region.
But researchers Andreas Cutsodands at Heidelberg University, about 2150 years ago, the researchers discovered a “strong and surprising increase” in lead emissions caused by human activities throughout Greece.
Almost at that time, in 146 BC, the Romanian army invaded the Greek Peninsula, where it converted the region of the region and the economy. With the expansion of the range of Roman trade, colonies, and charging across the Mediterranean and Black Sea, the demand for silver currencies rapidly took the demand, which requires a chest son -in -law, says Koutsudndris.
Later, the Roman Empire used bullets for table and building tools, including tubes.
Discover previous research – including Greenland’s ice nuclei analysis – high levels of lead in most of the northern hemisphere during the Roman era.
“A specific and local image is how lead levels change,” said Nathan Chilman, an environmental scientist at Nevada University, Renault, who has not participated in the research, but the new study adds, “A specific and local image to how lead levels change.”
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