Silver fueled the rise of the Roman Empire. But the ancient process of mining and extracting silver was also making the air thick with lead, scientists found.

Environmental disasters involving huge oil tankers poisoned wastewater and thousands of tons of lead. The lead got into the ...

To reach this conclusion, the researchers used sophisticated computer modeling to move backward and forward in time. Once they determined lead levels in ice cores matching the years of the Roman ...

Timeline of lead pollution and its impact on the Roman empire Iron age (around 500 BCE) Lead pollution starts to increase as metals, especially lead, begin to be used on a large scale.

DRI scientists have previously used atmospheric pollution records preserved in Arctic ice cores to identify periods of lead pollution throughout the Roman Empire, and now new research expands on this ...

Widespread lead pollution from the Roman Empire's metals industry caused a cognitive decline across Europe, with researchers estimating a 2- to 3-point drop in IQ due to lead exposure, ...

Industrial pollution has been having a negative impact on human health since the height of the Roman Empire, reveals new research. Lead pollution likely caused widespread IQ declines throughout ...

Lead contamination has long been recognized as a significant public health hazard, even at low exposure levels. A recent study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) sheds ...

Lead pollution likely led to widespread declines in IQ during the ancient Roman era, a study has found. The negative health effects of lead exposure in modernity have been widely recognized.

A further spike in levels of human-caused lead pollution was observed about 2,150 years ago. This period saw the expansion of the Roman Empire across the Aegean region , which hosted some of the ...

Atmospheric lead pollution likely caused cognitive decline among citizens of the Roman Empire, according to research published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Roman Empire’s lead pollution was high enough to lower IQs: Study. The findings would make the roughly 200-year span of Pax Romana one of the earliest examples of industrial pollution.