A Roman provincial city and its contamination legacy from artisanal and daily-life activities

Roman metal use and related extraction activities resulted in heavy metal pollution and contamination, in particular of Pb near ancient mines and harbors, as well as producing a global atmospheric impact. New evidence from ancient Gerasa (Jerash), Jordan, suggests that small-scale but intense Roman, Byzantine and Umayyad period urban, artisanal, and everyday site activities contributed to substantial heavy metal contamination of the city and its hinterland wadi, even though no metal mining took place and hardly any lead water pipes were used. Distribution of heavy metal contaminants, especially Pb, observed in the urban soils and sediments within this ancient city and its hinterland wadi resulted from aeolian, fluvial, cultural and post-depositional processes. These represent the contamination pathways of an ancient city-hinterland setting and reflect long-term anthropogenic legacies at local and regional scales beginning in the Roman period. Thus, urban use and re-use of heavy metal sources should be factored into understanding historical global-scale contaminant distributions.

Automated summary

The Roman metal use and related extraction activities resulted in heavy metal pollution, especially lead, near ancient mines and harbors. New evidence from ancient Gerasa in Jordan shows that urban, artisanal, and everyday activities during the Roman, Byzantine, and Umayyad periods contributed to significant heavy metal contamination, even without metal mining or lead water pipes. The distribution of heavy metal contaminants in the urban soils and sediments was a result of various processes, such as aeolian, fluvial, cultural, and post-depositional, highlighting long-term anthropogenic legacies at a local and regional scale.