The mystery of deaths 5,000 years ago related to mercury poisoning

Scientists have found the first evidence of mercury poisoning in 5,000-year-old human bones in Spain and Portugal causing horrific deaths.

Mercury poisoning is a form of metal poisoning caused by exposure to mercury that causes many effects on the human nervous, digestive and immune systems, even causing many horrifying accidents. Scientists recently found the oldest evidence of mercury poisoning in humans.

Evidence shows that prehistoric people have been poisoned with mercury.

Unusually high levels of mercury have been found in human bones about 5,000 years ago in some areas of Spain and Portugal.

There were about 370 people living during the Neolithic, Late Bronze Age identified with high levels of mercury. It is known that mercury levels were up to 400 parts per million in some of the remains, much higher than the 1 or 2 ppm that the WHO defines as normal levels in human hair.

The team of scientists at the University of North Carolina Wilmington said the mercury poisoning was caused by their exposure to cinnabar, a mercury sulfide mineral that forms naturally in thermal and volcanic areas around the world. .

When smashed, it turns into a brilliant red powder. Historically, the powdered form has been used to produce colorants in paints or as an ingredient in certain "magic" drugs.

At that time, cinnabar became a highly symbolic substance, even considered sacred, hunted, traded, and widely used in many spiritual rituals. Some tombs, decorative statues are painted with colors from cinnabar, sometimes powdered on the dead.

The scientist who led the study said: "Mercury sulfide was widely used in Iberia, as well as in many other prehistoric cultures around the world. The ancients used this substance in rituals related to burial, buried or used as a body paint or also as a medicine".

The results came after collecting evidence, analyzing and studying from 370 individuals from 50 tombs, scattered in 23 archaeological sites across Spain and Portugal. According to the researchers, those who died may have accidentally inhaled or even swallowed it, resulting in abnormally high levels of mercury in their bones.