Patterson C C, Shirahata H, Ericson J E
Sci Total Environ. 1987 Mar;61:167-200. doi: 10.1016/0048-9697(87)90366-4.
Concentrations of metabolic lead in buried ancient bones are obscured by replacement of calcium in apatite by excessive amounts of soil moisture Pb. Concentrations of metabolic barium in bones are affected in a similar way. Added soil Pb and Ba, expressed as log(Pb/Ca) versus log(Ba/Ca) among various bones at a given burial site, are positively covariant, with about 5-fold more soil Pb added for each unit of added soil Ba. The typical natural metabolic Ba/Ca ratio in contemporary people can be measured unambiguously because it as unaffected by industrial pollution. It applies to ancient people because it has not changed historically. The intercept of the covariance curve for buried bones of a given ancient population at the known metabolic Ba/Ca ratio indexes the corresponding metabolic Pb/Ca ratio in bones of that population. Lead levels which prevailed in Romans appear to have been similar to those in contemporary people, which are approximately 1000-fold above natural levels in humans determined by this method in ancient Peruvians. This indicates that studies of natural biochemical reactions in cells free of industrial Pb should be made, because most present biochemical knowledge is founded on data obtained from systems polluted with Pb 1000 to 100000-fold above natural levels. The 5000 year history of smelting Pb by humans indicates that a system of education fostered by genetically common lower brain center functions operated on hundreds of successive generations in a context of cultural changes invoked by feedback from developments in engineering technologies to give rise to the difference between present typical and prehistoric natural levels of Pb in humans. Archaeological and anthropological studies of early developments in writing, music and metallurgy by ancient Peruvians and Persian peoples should be combined with PET-scan studies of their descendants to discover if, as preliminary archaeological data suggest, the two ancient populations differed on a genetic basis in higher brain functions, yet are indistinguishable as metallurgical engineers. This would demonstrate that higher centers of the human brain did not exercise guiding control, through hundreds of generations, over those developments of engineering technologies which resulted in the extreme pollution of the earth's biosphere with poisonous Pb.
埋藏古代骨骼中代谢铅的浓度会因土壤中过量的水分铅取代磷灰石中的钙而变得模糊不清。骨骼中代谢钡的浓度也会受到类似影响。在给定埋藏地点的各种骨骼中，添加的土壤铅和钡，以log(Pb/Ca)对log(Ba/Ca)表示，呈正协变关系，每添加一个单位的土壤钡，添加的土壤铅约多5倍。当代人典型的自然代谢Ba/Ca比值可以明确测量，因为它不受工业污染影响。它适用于古代人，因为其在历史上没有变化。给定古代人群埋藏骨骼的协变曲线在已知代谢Ba/Ca比值处的截距可指示该人群骨骼中相应的代谢Pb/Ca比值。罗马人当时的铅水平似乎与当代人相似，通过这种方法测定，当代人的铅水平比古代秘鲁人自然水平高出约1000倍。这表明应该对无工业铅污染的细胞中的自然生化反应进行研究，因为目前大多数生化知识是基于从铅含量比自然水平高1000到100000倍的污染系统中获得的数据。人类5000年的铅冶炼历史表明，由基因上常见的低级脑中枢功能促进的教育系统，在数百代人的连续传承中，在工程技术发展反馈引发的文化变革背景下发挥作用，导致了人类目前典型铅水平与史前自然铅水平的差异。应该将古代秘鲁人和波斯人在书写、音乐和冶金方面早期发展的考古学和人类学研究与对他们后代的正电子发射断层扫描（PET）研究相结合，以确定是否如初步考古数据所暗示的那样，这两个古代人群在高级脑功能的基因基础上存在差异，但作为冶金工程师却难以区分。这将证明，人类大脑的高级中枢在数百代人的时间里，并未对导致地球生物圈被有毒铅极度污染的那些工程技术发展实施引导控制。
