Medieval bear’s teeth shed light on historic heavy metal pollution
1000 years ago, a bear died after falling down a cave shaft in Romania’s Carpathian mountains. Was lead poisoning to blame?
Abnormally high levels of lead in the teeth of a brown bear, which died 1000 years ago down a cave shaft in the Southern Carpathian mountains, represent the earliest known evidence of human-induced heavy metal pollution in a wild animal. The finding pushes back the date of such pollution affecting terrestrial wildlife by several centuries before the Industrial Revolution began around 1760.