""These remarkable climate archives function much like a history book: past atmospheric conditions and environmental changes are recorded in their layers," explained Dr Azzurra Spagnesi of Ca' Foscari University of Venice, who led the study."
""Between 700 and 1200 CE, lead and other metals showed very low concentrations, reflecting the regional background of a mostly unpolluted pre-industrial environment," Spagnesi noted."
""From roughly 950 CE onward, peaks in arsenic, lead, copper, and silver appear, corresponding to periods of intensified medieval mining and smelting in the Alps and other European regions.""
Ice cores from the Weißseespitze glacier provide a continuous environmental record from the Roman period to the early modern era. Researchers identified pollution peaks linked to human activity, particularly mining and smelting, by analyzing trace elements in the ice. Between 700 and 1200 CE, low concentrations of metals indicated a mostly unpolluted environment, but from 950 CE onward, increased levels of arsenic, lead, copper, and silver were detected, correlating with intensified medieval industrial activities in the Alps and beyond.
Read at Medievalists.net
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