技术变革对人类健康的影响至少可以追溯到新石器时代的农业革命。越来越多的证据表明,广泛的环境污染始于冶金实践,并一直持续到今天。从这些实践中释放的微量元素的环境暴露有可能改变人体成分,比如骨矿物化学,特别是对于那些没有稳态调节的元素。这些信号可用于推断人类健康,特别是当大量检测到金属毒素时。因此,考古骨骼的微量元素地球化学可能提供一种通过时间评估人类健康的手段。然而,成岩因素会阻碍提取这些信息的尝试。因此,我们采用了先进的分析和解释方法,仔细区分了大约1000年的欧洲墓葬组,以解决潜在的有毒微量元素暴露问题。.这里,为了解决我们的假设,即罗马城市化创造了由多重暴露引起的最早的城市有毒环境之一,我们提出了一套全面的股骨骨微量元素成分,这些成分来自跨越三个不同的考古时期的墓葬(青铜时代,铁器时代,和罗马时期)。.所有骨标本均从精心选择的股骨的前中段获得,并使用旨在减轻土壤污染的相同分析技术进行处理。我们的数据表明,在罗马帝国时期,Londinium的城市居民普遍的环境污染加速了,导致人口健康容易受到环境变化的影响。具体来说,骨铅,银,钒,砷,和镉浓度通常升高,可能与多种毒性有关。此外,在一些Londinium墓葬中,骨铁水平极高。我们的解释是,居住在Londinium的罗马人不仅像先前的几项研究表明的那样被铅暴露所毒害,而且还被几种金属毒素所毒害。
Technological change has affected human health dating back to at least the Neolithic agricultural revolution. Growing evidence indicates widespread environmental pollution began with metallurgical practices and continues today. Environmental exposures to trace elements released from these practices have the potential to alter human body composition, such as bone mineral chemistry, especially for elements that are not homeostatically regulated. These signals can be used for inferences about human health, particularly when metallotoxins are detected in abundance. Therefore, trace element geochemistry of archaeological bone may provide a means to evaluate human health through time. However, diagenetic factors can hinder attempts to extract this information. Thus, we employed advanced analytical and interpretive methods to carefully distinct groups of European burials over about 1000 years to address questions of potentially toxic trace element exposures. Here, to address our hypothesis that Roman urbanization created one of the earliest urban toxic environment caused by multiple exposures, we present a comprehensive suite of bone trace element compositions of femora from burials spanning three distinct archaeological time periods (Bronze Age, Iron Age, and Roman period). All bone specimens were obtained from the anterior-mid shaft of carefully selected femora and processed using the same analytical techniques designed to mitigate soil contamination. Our data indicate that widespread environmental pollution accelerated in Londinium during the Roman Empire period, leading to conditions where population health would be vulnerable to environmental changes. Specifically, bone lead, silver, vanadium, arsenic, and cadmium concentrations were typically elevated and would likely be associated with multiple toxicities. In addition, bone iron levels were extremely high in some Londinium burials. Our interpretation is that the Romans inhabiting Londinium were not just poisoned by lead exposure as several previous studies show but by several metallotoxins.