Oldest Evidence of Human-Caused Lead Pollution Dates from Over 5,000 Years Ago, Around the Aegean Sea

Oldest Evidence of Human-Caused Lead Pollution Dates from Over 5,000 Years Ago, Around the Aegean Sea

Lead pollution started peaking when the Romans took over the Aegean coastline.

by Tibi Puiu
January 30, 2025


For thousands of years, the Aegean Sea has been a crossroads of civilizations, from Bronze Age kingdoms to the cultural and military might of ancient Greece and Rome. But alongside their art, philosophy, and conquests, these early sea-faring societies left behind something else — traces of heavy metal pollution in the very sediment of the land and sea they occupied.

These muddy archives, pulled from the seafloor and nearby peat bogs, reveal that humans first began contaminating the environment with lead as early as 5,200 years ago — centuries earlier than previously thought.

The Dawn of Metalworking (And Pollution)
Researchers analyzed 14 sediment cores collected from the Aegean Sea and its surrounding coastline. One core, taken from the Tenaghi Philippon peatland in northeastern Greece, contained the oldest known evidence of human-caused lead pollution. “This signal dates back to approximately 5,200 years ago,” says Dr. Andreas Koutsodendris, a geoscientist at Heidelberg University and a lead author of the study. “It’s about 1,200 years earlier than the previous record.”

Around the time the first lead pollution was deposited, early societies in the Aegean began experimenting with metallurgy and agriculture. These activities left a subtle but detectable trace in the environment.

The lead pollution, the researchers argue, is probably a byproduct of early silver production. “Because lead was released during the production of silver, among other things, proof of increasing lead concentrations in the environment is, at the same time, an important indicator of socioeconomic change,” explains Koutsodendris.

More:
https://www.zmescience.com/ecology/oldest-evidence-of-human-caused-lead-pollution-dates-from-over-5000-years-ago-around-the-aegean-sea/