Geoscience Reference
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the ancient world, then, was recognised as damaging to both human health and the
built environment, and it was in early cities that the
rst legislative steps were taken
to abate it
albeit with limited success.
Domestic smoke problems from wood and charcoal burning were mainly con-
and to protect the air as common property
ned to a limited area in and around urban centres. The noxious emissions from
smelting and mining metals, however, had more serious and far-reaching conse-
quences. The leading sources of metallic pollutants were lead and copper produc-
tion, which had environmental impacts on a regional and hemispheric level long
before the Industrial Revolution. First smelted in Anatolia and Mesopotamia around
5000 BCE, the production of lead increased sharply during the Greco-Roman
period (peaking at around 80,000 tons per annum). Indeed, it was central to the
Roman
s daily lives, and they used it extensively for everything from domestic
water pipes and roo
'
and even as a sweetener of
wine (lead arsenate). The adverse health effects of long-term exposure to lead
(impaired fertility and neurological damage), which disproportionately affected the
Roman aristocracy and upper classes, have been linked to the end of empire. Lead
extraction and smelting also posed a serious health hazard for workers (often forced
labour) in Roman mining operations in the Iberian Peninsula, England, Gaul,
Greece and elsewhere, as well as leaving behind hill-sized mounds of black slag
that transformed the landscape. The Greek geographer and historian Strabo (c.64
BCE - c.23 CE) described how toxic metallic emissions from smelter furnaces were
discharged into the air from
ng to kitchen utensils and coinage
; and small-sized particles were
transported on the prevailing winds to pollute large regions of the northern hemi-
sphere. Analysis of Arctic ice-core studies has shown that imperial Rome increased
the release of lead into the environment by a factor of ten, mainly due to inef
'
high chimneys
'
cient
smelting in open furnaces. 8
The Roman period also saw a marked rise in copper production, which
often
alloyed with tin to form the harder metal bronze
was utilised to make tools,
weapons and coins. Reaching a peak of over 15,000 tons per annum approximately
2,000 years ago, Roman copper supplies were sourced mainly from Spain, Cyprus
and central Europe. The widespread use of copper coinage in medieval China under
the Sung Dynasty contributed to a second preindustrial boom in production (rising
to about 13,000 tons per annum at its peak; a scale comparable to that of Roman
times). But the primitive technologies and techniques employed by Roman and
Chinese metallurgists resulted in around 15 % of all smelted copper being expelled
into the atmosphere. The data from Arctic ice-cores shows that the cumulative
deposition of copper pollution in the northern hemisphere was much greater before
the Industrial Revolution than afterwards, when smelting technologies had
improved. 9 It is important to note that because smelters and other smoky trades
(such as brick-making) made disagreeable neighbours, they were often situated well
beyond the boundaries of a city. Pragmatically, they were generally located in the
8 Hong et al. ( 1994 ), Hughes ( 1996 ) and McMichael ( 2001 ).
9 Hong et al. ( 1996 ) and Colbeck ( 2007 ).
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