They discover that Mayan cities are dangerously contaminated with mercury.

Lead author Duncan Cook, Associate Professor of Geography at Australian Catholic University, said: “Environmental mercury pollution is typically found in contemporary urban areas and industrial landscapes. It is difficult to explain the discovery of mercury buried deep in soils and sediments in ancient Maya cities. We’ve seen you use it.”

ancient anthropogenic pollution

Cook and colleagues reviewed all data on mercury concentrations in soil and sediment at archaeological sites in the ancient Maya world. These data show that there were Classical Period settlements (present-day Chunchumil in Mexico, Marco Gonzales, Chan b’i and Actuncan in Belize, La Corona, Tikal, Petén Itzá, Piedras Negras and Cancuén, Palmarejo in Guatemala) . Honduras and Cerén, a Mesoamerican ‘Pompeii’, in El Salvador), lMercury pollution can be detected anywhere Except for Chan b’i.

Concentrations range from 0.016 ppm for Actuncan to the extraordinary 17.16 ppm for Tikal.It is a place that welcomes thousands of tourists every year. For comparison, the toxic effect threshold (TET) for residual mercury is defined as 1 ppm.

Major mercury consumers

What caused this mercury pollution? The authors state that they found sealed containers filled with ‘elemental’ (i.e. liquid) mercury in various Maya sites, such as Quiriqua in Guatemala, El Paraíso in Honduras, and the ancient multi-ethnic megacity Teotihucan in central Mexico. In other parts of the Maya region, Archaeologists have found objects painted with mercury-containing dyes, primarily the mineral cinnabar.

The authors conclude that the ancient Maya often used paints and powders containing cinnabar and mercury for decoration. This mercury could seep from terraces, floor areas, walls and ceramics and then diffuse into the soil and water.

“For the Mayans, objects may contain the ch’ulel or spirit power found in the blood. Therefore, Cinnabar’s bright red pigment was a sacred substance, but unbeknownst to them, it was also deadly, and its legacy remains in the soil and sediment. “It’s around ancient Mayan sites,” said co-author Nicholas Dunning, a professor at the University of Cincinnati.

Because mercury is rare in the limestone that underlies much of the Maya region, they think the elemental mercury and cinnabar found at these Maya sites may have originally been mined from known deposits in the northern and southern regions of the ancient Maya. are imported to these cities by traders.

All this mercury would have posed a health hazard to the ancient Maya: for example, the effects of chronic mercury poisoning include damage to the central nervous system, kidneys and liver, tremors, vision and hearing problems, paralysis, and mental health problems. problems.

Maybe it’s important Dark Sun, one of the last Maya rulers of Tikal, who reigned around 810 AD, is depicted in frescoes as pathologically obese. Obesity is a known effect of the metabolic syndrome, which can result from chronic mercury poisoning.

More research is needed to determine whether mercury exposure plays a role in broader sociocultural changes and trends in the Maya world, such as those that occurred towards the end of the Classical Period.

Co-author Tim Beach, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, said: “We concluded that even the ancient Mayas, who used little metal, had very high concentrations of mercury in their environment. This result is that we are living in the ‘Anthropocene’ just as we are today, also a ‘Mayan Anthropocene’. ‘ or ‘Mayacene.’ Metal pollution seems to have been the effect of human activity throughout history.”

Reference work: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fenvs.2022.986119/full

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