
From the Wall Street Journal: “Lead pollution in ancient Rome was so high that it dropped the population’s IQ by around 3 points, if not more. Elites were exposed to lead through water pipes, cooking pots, bath tubs, cosmetics and the syrups that sweetened their wine. But the most widespread exposure for Romans came from industrial pollution caused by the mining and smelting of metals used to make money. Romans melted down galena, a lead-rich ore, to extract the silver needed for coins, and lead was a major byproduct of the process. McConnell and his colleagues examined airborne lead that drifted north from ancient Rome and was preserved in ice cores extracted from Greenland. The samples dated between 2,500 and 1,400 years ago—an era that included the rise and fall of the empire.The researchers matched the chemical fingerprint of the lead found in the cores to lead sources in the empire, according to McConnell.”
The Heslington Brain is a human specimen that is more than 2,600 years old

From Wikipedia: “The Heslington Brain is a 2,600-year-old human brain found inside a skull buried in a pit in Yorkshire by York Archaeological Trust in 2008. It is the oldest preserved brain ever found in Eurasia, and is believed to be the best-preserved ancient brain in the world. The skull was discovered during an archaeological dig commissioned by the University of York on the site of its new campus on the outskirts of the city of York. The area was found to have been the site of well-developed permanent habitation between 2,000–3,000 years before the present day. A number of possibly ritualistic objects were found to have been deposited in several pits, including the skull, which had belonged to a man probably in his 30s. He had been hanged before being decapitated with a knife and his skull appears to have been buried immediately. The rest of the body was missing. Although it is not known why he was killed, it is possible that it may have been a human sacrifice or ritual murder.”
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