Geochemical tales of individual lives in the industrial revolution: Untangling the impact of pollutant exposure in two English towns
Sara A. McGuire, Mark Hubbe, William J. Pestle, Arash Sharifi, Ali Pourmand · 2025
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Description
Sara McGuire and co-authors read industrial pollution in the bones of 94 people from two English towns. The Industrial Revolution remade air and water, but town averages hide single lives. Their 2025 study assays arsenic, barium, and lead in skeletons from South Shields and Barton-upon-Humber. Careful checks split pollution absorbed in life from soil seepage after burial. The two towns sat on opposite sides of the rural-urban line.
South Shields bones carried more arsenic and barium. Barton bones carried more lead. Lead isotope ratios match rock across the whole kingdom, hinting at a national web of industrial lead. Exposure varied by place and by social standing. The bones tell a spectrum, not a simple city-bad, country-good tale.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Sara A. McGuire, Mark Hubbe, William J. Pestle, Arash Sharifi, Ali Pourmand |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2025 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 86 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |