Rise and spread of lead-silver metallurgy deciphered from peatland archives

Abstract

How mining has shaped long-term economic and political landscapes across Europe and the Mediterranean remains poorly understood, largely because archaeological evidence is spatially fragmented and ore sources are difficult to trace from atmospheric lead (Pb) records. Here, we compile Pb isotope data from environmental archives and introduce the Environmental Match Intensity Index (EMII), a metric applied to peat records to track Pb–silver (Ag) ore-supply patterns and relative changes in the integrated mining-related atmospheric Pb signal over six millennia. EMII reveals an early mining signal centered on Laurion (Greece) during the Late Neolithic/Chalcolithic, followed by Bronze Age expansion structured by maritime routes linking the Cyclades, the Troad, and Anatolian coasts. From the Iron Age onward, our results challenge the conventional Iberian-centered mining model and instead reveal a polycentric and multimodal organization rooted in west-central European districts interconnected through major fluvial corridors and complementary terrestrial and maritime routes. EMII reaches its first major peak during the Early Roman period, declines during Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, and rises again from the High Middle Ages onward. Despite these temporal fluctuations, the overall continental distribution of the contributing mining regions remains broadly stable. By connecting environmental archives with mining, transport, and urban demand, this framework provides a scalable approach for reconstructing the long-term organization of metal production and circulation and their contribution to anthropization processes across different chrono-cultural periods and geographical settings.

The authors' abstract, as published at the source. Science Advances, 2026 · DOI ↗