A Roman provincial city and its contamination legacy from artisanal and daily-life activities.

PloS One
Genevieve HoldridgeIan Simpson

Abstract

Roman metal use and related extraction activities resulted in heavy metal pollution and contamination, in particular of Pb near ancient mines and harbors, as well as producing a global atmospheric impact. New evidence from ancient Gerasa (Jerash), Jordan, suggests that small-scale but intense Roman, Byzantine and Umayyad period urban, artisanal, and everyday site activities contributed to substantial heavy metal contamination of the city and its hinterland wadi, even though no metal mining took place and hardly any lead water pipes were used. Distribution of heavy metal contaminants, especially Pb, observed in the urban soils and sediments within this ancient city and its hinterland wadi resulted from aeolian, fluvial, cultural and post-depositional processes. These represent the contamination pathways of an ancient city-hinterland setting and reflect long-term anthropogenic legacies at local and regional scales beginning in the Roman period. Thus, urban use and re-use of heavy metal sources should be factored into understanding historical global-scale contaminant distributions.

References

Aug 30, 2017·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·Hugo DelileFrancis Albarède
May 16, 2018·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·Joseph R McConnellJørgen Peder Steffensen
May 31, 2018·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·David StottRubina Raja
Mar 27, 2019·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·Guy Bar-OzElisabetta Boaretto
Jul 10, 2019·Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·Joseph R McConnellJørgen Peder Steffensen

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