Childhood Lead Exposure in North Atlantic Fisheries: Concentration and Isotopic Analyses of Tooth Enamel From 18th to 19th Century Fishing Communities
Bibliographic record
Abstract
ABSTRACT Objectives This bioarcheological study explored the extent and sources of childhood lead (Pb) exposure in contexts where environmental sources were not anthropogenically enriched. Materials and Methods Sampled Pb concentrations and isotope ratios in the tooth enamel (2nd molars) of 46 individuals from five early fishing settlements in Newfoundland and Nova Scotia and 19 individuals from a mid‐18th century Royal Naval cemetery in Newfoundland. Results Pb concentrations were as much as 20 times higher than natural exposures (mean = 6.9, maximum = 28.7). Pb exposure in these fishing communities was higher than in previous studies, with expected natural exposure but not as high as industrial period sites in England or cemeteries associated with local mining activities in North America. Most Pb isotope ratios were consistent with English/Welsh and Western European Pb ore (206Pb/204Pb = 18.30–18.46, 208Pb/206Pb = 2.082–2.095), likely from imported Pb‐containing cultural materials such as ceramics. However, Pb outliers (206Pb/204Pb = 18.86–18.91, 208Pb/206Pb = 2.055–2.058) are consistent with values seen at other 19th‐century cemetery sites in North America and New Zealand. Discussion Since Pb mining was nonexistent in Newfoundland and there were limited environmental sources, exposures must have been from imported cultural materials. Previous studies have likely underestimated the contribution of Pb in cultural materials to historical contamination levels in archeological samples. Our study contributes to understanding the physical versus cultural environments' role in Pb exposure and the utility of Pb isotope ratios for identifying distinct cultural groups during the 18th and 19th centuries.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".