Researchers from the Ohio State University discovered that the Industrial Revolution is not the first time period that caused a spike in man-made pollution, the Christian Science Monitor reported.
In a new study, researchers revealed that air pollution caused by human activities emerged more than 200 years before the historical industrial period.
According to lead researcher Paolo Gabrielli of the university's Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center, human-caused pollution started during the 16th Century in Bolivia. Back then, the region was called Protosi and was inhabited by Incas.
When the Spanish colonizers arrived in Protosi, they forced the local inhabitants to extract silver ore from the mountains. The process involved mixing mercury to the grinded ore to separate the lead from silver.
Although it was considered as an efficient process, the technique produced huge clouds of lead that floated in the air. These clouds then traveled to Peru's Quelccaya Ice Cap where they were frozen and preserved for hundreds of years.
After conducting an analysis on the ice cap samples, the researchers discovered that they contained traces of lead and other elements such as arsenic, molybdenum, antimony and bismuth.
The authors of the study concluded that the ice caps contain evidence of how the forced mining by Spaniards on the Incas in Protosi contributed to air pollution at that time.
Gabrielli noted that the current definition of the Anthropocene, which refers to the time period when human activities began to affect the environment, could be revised due to the findings of the research team.
"The Industrial Revolution is often indicated as the beginning of the Anthropocene," he said in a statement. "Our results, pointing to a significant, large-scale pre-industrial pollution, indicate the difficulty in defining an unequivocal onset of the Anthropocene, and suggests that his new epoch emerged discontinuously through space and time during human history."
Despite tracing the early origin of human-induced pollution, Gabrielli mentioned that further studies must be conducted to find the link between forced mining in Protosi and the current effects of global warming.
