The mines in the kingdom of Rome ruined the air so that lead residues are still found in Finland
It has even been claimed that lead poisoning would have corrupted the discretion of the Roman elite and led to the collapse of the entire kingdom.
The pollution of the environment began already at the time of the Roman Empire, a new study published in the Geophysical Research Letters.
The multinational research team drew samples from the glacier of the Mont Blanc mountain in France and measured the lead concentrations in the air during history.
Lead remains in the environment for a very long time, and samples show much it has varied.
The study revealed that the mining operations in the Roman Empire once increased lead levels up to ten times the natural level. Pollution from the Rome mines spread to the atmosphere for up to 500 years.
From the lead samples, two large peaks were separated at lead concentrations on both sides of the countdown. The first was born around the year 250 BC. and next about 120 yrs. They will join the expansion of the Roman Empire.
Rome spread over the entire Italian peninsula in the third century BC. and conquered most of Europe in the second century to share.
People had been mining for spikes and metals, even lead, for thousands of years before the beginning of the countdown, but only the Romans began to lead the mass production. In the Roman Empire, water pipes and cutlery were generally made of lead. There was no information on its toxicity yet.
It has even been argued that lead poisoning would have corrupted the discretion of the Roman elite and ultimately led to the collapse of the entire kingdom. However, this is not the case with research data.