One important thing that I feel this article left out was how technological innovation was driven by military endeavors. From antiquity to Europe getting comfortable with gun powder was a very long time. Prior to gun powder, the focus was on siege warfare - how to destroy walled defenses in a timely fashion before supply chains before untenable. With the rise of gunpowder, innovation followed. Alot of industrial success came out of America, and with a giant ocean between itself and any potential invaders, they were able to focus that innovation for industry as opposed to militarily.
The article itself says that the theory that Rome fell due to lead poisoning is disputed. In fact they say these then recent findings are contradicting the theory. The exact quote you didn't seem to notice:
"The city's infatuation with lead pipes led to the popular (and disputed) theory that Rome fell due to lead poisoning. Now, a new study reveals that the city's lead plumbing infrastructure was at its biggest and most complicated during the centuries leading up to the empire's peak."
> or this is yet another a puff piece from Ars.
There is something particularly odious about complaining about the lack of intellectual rigour while showing none in the same comment.
Indeed. I live in Chicago. Several years back, mid-winter, we suddenly had a geyser in the middle of our courtyard: burst pipe. Called in experts, and several hours and one coffin-sized hole in our yard later, we had running water again. I asked them for the 10" / 25 cm spliced-out bit of pipe, and still have it -- it is amazingly heavy, and definitely lead.
but it's surely not rocket science to determine the effects of it, right? it's either so bad that a civilization can die from it, or decidedly not? especially if it's been used in recent times in Chicago, which didnt go extinct like Rome. So I'm not sure why this theory always gets reluctantly dragged along, it's either true or false.
The jury is still out on Chicago going extinct :-) though I see your point, and I wonder how serious the problem actually is. TIL: the danger depends on your water chemistry[1], which I expect is monitored in cities like Chicago.
By my reading, that is not the causation they're talking about. At all.
My read: "Lead plumbing was an extremely expensive luxury in Ancient Rome. Evidence of widespread use of lead plumbing (in sediments in the harbor) rises when economic times where good (so the Romans could afford it), and falls when times were bad (so they couldn't). And we found some other interesting details in our sediment core samples."
