Dirty Old People
Pan-European atmospheric lead pollution, enhanced blood lead levels, and cognitive decline from Roman-era mining and smelting
Joseph McConnell et al.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 21 January 2025
Abstract:
Ancient texts and archaeological evidence indicate substantial lead exposure during antiquity that potentially impacted human health. Although lead exposure routes were many and included the use of glazed tablewares, paints, cosmetics, and even intentional ingestion, the most significant for the nonelite, rural majority of the population may have been through background air pollution from mining and smelting of silver and lead ores that underpinned the Roman economy. Here, we determined potential health effects of this air pollution using Arctic ice core measurements of Roman-era lead pollution, atmospheric modeling, and modern epidemiology-based relationships between air concentrations, blood lead levels (BLLs), and cognitive decline. Findings suggest air lead concentrations exceeded 150 ng/m3 near metallurgical emission sources, with average enhancements of >1.0 ng/m3 over Europe during the Pax Romana apogee of the Roman Empire. The result was blood lead enhancements in young children of about 2.4 µg/dl above an estimated Neolithic background of 1.0 µg/dl, leading to widespread cognitive decline including a 2.5-to-3 point reduction in intelligence quotient throughout the Roman Empire.
Sun stones and the darkened sun: Neolithic miniature art from the island of Bornholm, Denmark
Rune Iversen et al.
Antiquity, forthcoming
Abstract:
The discovery of more than 600 whole and fragmentary engraved stone plaques in the early third millennium BC infill from the ditches of a causewayed enclosure at Vasagård, on the Danish island of Bornholm, represents a unique find in Neolithic miniature art. Termed ‘sun stones’ in reference to the rayed images that characterise many of the plaques, the stones were deposited en masse over a short period. This article offers a fundamental classification of the rich imagery captured in the engravings and examines its potential function at a time of possible climatic crisis that impacted not just Bornholm but the wider northern hemisphere.
Starch-rich plant foods 780,000 y ago: Evidence from Acheulian percussive stone tools
Hadar Ahituv et al.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 21 January 2025
Abstract:
In contrast to animal foods, wild plants often require long, multistep processing techniques that involve significant cognitive skills and advanced toolkits to perform. These costs are thought to have hindered how hominins used these foods and delayed their adoption into our diets. Through the analysis of starch grains preserved on basalt anvils and percussors, we demonstrate that a wide variety of plants were processed by Middle Pleistocene hominins at the site of Gesher Benot Ya’aqov in Israel, at least 780,000 y ago. These results further indicate the advanced cognitive abilities of our early ancestors, including their ability to collect plants from varying distances and from a wide range of habitats and to mechanically process them using percussive tools.
New evidence for sealing in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic from Tol-e Sangi, Iran
Morteza Khanipour & Sepideh Jamshidi Yeganeh
Antiquity, forthcoming
Abstract:
During the excavation of Tol-e Sangi in southern Iran, tokens and a sealing were discovered in Pre-Pottery Neolithic (PPN, c. 7050–6900 BC) layers. As the oldest sealing found in Iran, this artefact suggests that storage and sealing practices were used during the PPN period in South-west Asia.
The earliest evidence for deformation of livestock horns: The case of Predynastic sheep from Hierakonpolis, Egypt
Wim Van Neer, Bea De Cupere & Renée Friedman
Journal of Archaeological Science, December 2024
Abstract:
Archaeozoological evidence for the modification of sheep horns during Egypt's Predynastic period was uncovered at Hierakonpolis, Upper Egypt. At HK6, the site's so-called elite cemetery, a grave, which was part of a larger mortuary complex dated to around 3700 BC, contained at least 6 large, castrated male sheep. One individual was polled, while four others were of the corkscrew-horn type, but their horns were not oriented in the natural, lateral direction. Instead, the horns had been intentionally manipulated to grow upwards and in three cases this resulted in upright, parallel horns. While comparable practices are well documented in Africa in cattle through both modern ethnographic observations and archaeozoological studies of material from third millennium BC Nubia (in Kerma, Sudan), the Hierakonpolis sheep provide the oldest evidence for horn modification of livestock, and the first demonstration of the practice applied to sheep. When describing the skulls particular attention is paid to the pathological traces and deformities, i.e. constrictions on the horn cores, holes at the horn core bases, and deformations of the frontals. In order to assess the possible methods used in Predynastic Hierakonpolis to redirect the horns, these observations are compared with ethnographic and archaeozoological data from the literature. Finally, the possible reasons why these sheep were modified are also discussed. This study indicates that Predynastic Egyptians were already familiar with horn modelling techniques and confirms that this practice has a long history in the Nile Valley.
Mega-fortresses in the South Caucasus: New data from southern Georgia
Nathaniel Erb-Satullo et al.
Antiquity, forthcoming
Abstract:
Recent research on the organisation and growth of large settlements (both urban and non-urban) has prompted a reassessment of factors driving population aggregation. Systematic aerial and ground survey of the South Caucasus mega-fortress Dmanisis Gora, described here, contributes to the understanding of large fortress settlements in the South Caucasus (c. 1500–500 BC) as part of this wider debate. Substantial defensive walls and stone architecture in the outer settlement contrast with low-intensity occupation, possibly by a seasonally mobile segment of the population. The exceptional size of Dmanisis Gora helps add new dimensions to population aggregation models in Eurasia and beyond.