researchers studied 250,000 years old molar teeth of Neanderthal children from the South of France. The analysis is therefore by far the oldest evidence of lead pollution, such as the researchers in the journal “Science Advance” letter.
“Actually, you thought, contact-to-lead-used in populations only after the industrialization, but these results show that the occurred already in prehistoric times,” says study leader Christine Austin from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York.
The Team led by Tanya Smith from Griffith University in Brisbane analysed two molar teeth of Neanderthal children, who were found in Southeast France at the Payre river, a tributary of the Rhone.
a Lot of lead in the teeth
the researchers examined the dental layers in Barium, lead, and various oxygen isotopes. These layers were created during the first three years of life of children and store elements from the environment. The tooth layers are thus an archive that stores information about environmental conditions in early life.
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For the Surprise resulted in high lead levels in the teeth. One of the children – Payre 6 – had from the age of 2.5 months of contact to lead. The load is increased, however, from the age of nine months – so in the Winter and remained until the age of 1.6 years increased. A second significant increase in two to three weeks, the Team locates later. The second child – Payre 336 – was repeatedly exposed to high levels of lead.
The high and acute lead values suggest that the children were exposed to the substance in the short term – for example, through contaminated food or water or by Inhalation of lead-contaminated Bahsegel smoke.
Two lead mines in the vicinity
“It is plausible that the lead-in Payre 6 of liquids, but not milk, came. The burden began at the age of about 2.5 months, in the Winter, at the age of 9 months with the inclusion of solid food, and then again in late Winter or early spring of the following year,” writes the Team.
The researchers also provide an explanation for lead contamination: “Within a radius of 25 kilometers around the site of the find, what suits search for the ordinary removal of the food, there are now at least two lead-mines.” The fabric was apparently out of the ground.
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notes that it’s not the fact that the metal has damaged the children, the researchers found in the teeth. Instead, they discovered the two children, the evidence for a short illness of about two weeks in duration, which occurred in the colder months of the year.
Breastfed up to the age of 2.5 years
The analysis also provides information on the birthday, over and above the oxygen values in the Tooth. Accordingly, Payre 6 came in the spring of the world. “This fits the General pattern in mammals, their offspring during phases of a larger food supply to bring to the world,” writes the Team. However, the evaluation of a single tooth has no significance for the group as a whole.
This also applies to the studies of the researchers are Breastfeeding. Accordingly, Payre 6 was weaned at the age of 2.5 years. To decrease this time, the Barium values in the Tooth to a Minimum. In the case of the second child – Payre 336 – the Barium content of the tooth is not clearly interpret.
“It seems that this individual was born in the spring and fall weaned”, they write. In this age, children would be weaned in a non-industrialized cultures.
Video: Evolution of human – bone read
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