Exceptionally high levels of lead pollution in the Balkans from the Early Bronze Age to the Industrial Revolution.

ABSTRACT: The Balkans are considered the birthplace of mineral resource exploitation and metalworking in Europe. However, since knowledge of the timing and extent of metallurgy in southeastern Europe is largely constrained by discontinuous archaeological findings, the long-term environmental impact of past mineral resource exploitation is not fully understood. Here, we present a high-resolution and continuous geochemical record from a peat bog in western Serbia, providing a clear indication of the extent and magnitude of environmental pollution in this region, and a context in which to place archaeological findings. We observe initial evidence of anthropogenic lead (Pb) pollution during the earliest part of the Bronze Age [∼3,600 years before Common Era (BCE)], the earliest such evidence documented

SUBMITTER: Longman J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6016796 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature