Lead Core as Window into Roman GDP
Talk History at 30,000 feet: The Big Picture
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1stellarexplorer
Scientists have used the lead contamination from a Greenland ice core as proxy for GDP of the Roman Empire:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/14/science/ice-core-lead-roman-empire.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/14/science/ice-core-lead-roman-empire.html
2Macumbeira
Great article ! Thanks Stellar
3Macumbeira
Great article ! Thanks Stellar
4stellarexplorer
You are doubly welcome!
5pmackey
I read that article on Facebook. Fascinating stuff. I think it'll be more interesting if and when they can tell where the lead came from. It would be interesting to know which parts of the Roman Empire were producing lead ore and its impact on the empire.
6stellarexplorer
>5 pmackey:
I agree that there are ways to make it even more interesting. But one of the things that never ceases to amaze me is the way that a record of history is often preserved somehow. Whether we are speaking about the universe, whose early history can be observed, for example, in the temperature of the cosmic microwave background radiation, or humans whose history is partly recorded in the details of our genomic sequences, or the Roman Empire, some measure of the economic output of which is apparently preserved in Greenland ice cores. I find this mind blowing.
I agree that there are ways to make it even more interesting. But one of the things that never ceases to amaze me is the way that a record of history is often preserved somehow. Whether we are speaking about the universe, whose early history can be observed, for example, in the temperature of the cosmic microwave background radiation, or humans whose history is partly recorded in the details of our genomic sequences, or the Roman Empire, some measure of the economic output of which is apparently preserved in Greenland ice cores. I find this mind blowing.
