“Knowing the past for improving the present and have a better future” is the most important gift that Archaeology can give to humankind. PollutedPast project follows this statement regarding one of humanity's greatest challenges: metal pollution and its impact on populations. Today, pollution prevention is at the heart of global climate-change regulations; however, progress in developing national policies often underestimate the problem – viewing it as a recent, industrial era issue. This view must be fought with solid evidence showing as, for example, the traces of long-term pollution in our bodies. PollutedPast is investigating the severity of environmental metal pollution in preindustrial populations providing records on human remains, implicating physiological stress, impact on risk groups (i.e. babies, people with a disability) and is connecting this information with historical/archaeological sources and natural archives.
The environmental cycling of so-called pollution metals - lead, mercury and copper, among others - is heavily affected by human activities such as mining and metallurgy, which strongly increased their emissions to the atmosphere, soils and water. These metals can produce harmful effects on ecosystems and human health. Exposure, even at low levels, causes complex and serious health disorders, including developmental delays, physiological stress, respiratory problems, impairment of the brain, kidney and cardiovascular functions, and may cause even death. Infants born to or breastfeed by mothers with high lead or mercury levels are the most susceptible to developing multiorgan disturbances. At present, lead and mercury toxicity is of global public concern, and consequently, their environmental and physiological levels are monitored in different populations by international institutions.
Studies of environmental archives such as polar ice, lake sediments and peat have revealed evidence for widespread preindustrial environmental metal pollution. In Europe, the earliest signs date back to the beginning of mining and metallurgy. The pattern of pollution shows a climax during the Roman period and a dramatic drop by AD 5th century, coinciding with the collapse of Western Roman Empire, only to resume centuries later in the course of the early medieval period. Studies have linked the acceleration of Roman metal pollution to the rise of lead–silver and mercury (cinnabar) mining and metallurgy, notably in the Iberian Peninsula, but detected as far north as Sweden. In northern Europe, patterns of pollution date back to the medieval period, rather than beginning with the Industrial Revolution, and indeed show peaks comparable to present-day levels. We are providing with this project the first long-term archaeological studies on the decline of air quality in Roman and Medieval Europe.
The aim of PollutedPast is: “To establish the impact of environmental metal pollution in ancient populations”. This is developed through four main objectives:
(1) To investigate the transfer of metal pollution from environmental sources to high-risk population strata (i.e. babies/mothers and people with chronic infectious diseases).
(2) To explore the connection with the social-, cultural- and economic- background.
(3) To produce detailed data about human exposure to metal pollution during Roman and Medieval times in Iberia and Scandinavia (pre-industrial populations under various degrees of exposure) and compare these data with that of natural archives.
(4) To provide a long-term view of the footprints of metal emissions in human bodies, aiming to decipher the global and local narratives (glocalization) of the relationship between humans and metals.
