Bone chemistry uncovers hidden stories of pollution, gender, and life in industrializing Britain
An interdisciplinary team of scientists has uncovered new evidence showing that the health impacts of the Industrial Revolution varied more widely across England than previously believed. The findings, published in the journal Science Advances, challenge the longstanding narrative that industrial cities were uniformly polluted while rural communities remained comparatively untouched during the rise of polluting industries.
The key to the success of this investigation was combining a wealth of historical evidence such as sex, age and occupational data with bone geochemistry and isotopic analysis. This approach allowed the research team from the University of Miami, Ohio State University, Michigan State University, the Smithsonian Institution to examine skeletal remains from 94 individuals from two 18th–19th century towns—industrial South Shields and rural Barton-upon-Humber—to trace how industrial pollution accumulated in the body over a lifetime. This direct physiological record offers an objective view of past health, bypassing the biases and gaps of written history and revealing how people experienced industrialization. The team sampled long bones (primarily femora) from adults and adolescents to measure concentrations of arsenic, barium, and lead—heavy metal contaminants that accumulate in bone and provide a reliable marker of chronic exposure. This method allowed the researchers to reconstruct lifetime contact with key industrial pollutants and compare exposure patterns across communities, sexes, and social identities.
A significant finding of this study is that exposure to toxic elements common in industrial goods did not follow a simple "urban vs. rural" divide but instead formed a broad spectrum shaped by local industry, social context, and individual identity. Notably, pollution exposure varied significantly by sex and biosocial identity: in industrial South Shields, females had markedly higher concentrations of arsenic and barium than both males in their own community and females from the agrarian town of Barton-upon-Humber.
"Examining the experiences of people in South Shields and Barton-upon-Humber not only allows us to uncover past injustices but also provides evidence to guide policy and protect vulnerable populations from similar exposures in the future," said the lead author Sara McGuire from Nashua Community College, Seton Hall University, and the Smithsonian Institution. "This historical pattern echoes challenges faced by marginalized communities today, such as the lead water crisis in Flint, Michigan,"
"This work is a rare collaboration between anthropologists and isotope geochemists to give a glimpse into the lives of individuals through the rising pollution of the Industrial era," said the study's corresponding author Ali Pourmand, a professor of geosciences at the University of Miami's Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric and Earth Science. "One of our main challenges was to disentangle the signature of heavy metals that were accumulated during the lifetime of an individual from potential contamination caused after burial when the bones came into contact with the soil over centuries."
This was accomplished by contrasting the isotopic signature of Pb (Lead) and Sr (Strontium) in soil from the burial locations and for all 94 individuals using the multi-collector mass spectrometer at the Neptune Isotope Lab at the Rosenstiel School. "The isotopic composition of burial soil and the bone samples were significantly different. This provided the crucial evidence we needed to argue the heavy metals measured in the bones were the result of lived experiences of those individuals." Pourmand added.
By revealing the complexity of pollution exposure during one of history's most transformative periods, the study offers a more nuanced understanding of how industrial change shaped health—and highlights the value of bioarchaeological data in reconstructing the lived past.
The study, titled "Geochemical Tales of Individual Lives in the Industrial Revolution: Untangling the Impacts of Pollutant Exposure in Two English Towns was published Dec. 10 in the journal Science Advances. The study's authors include Ali Pourmand and Arash Sharifi from the University of Miami's Rosenstiel School; Sara McGuire from Nashua Community College, Seaton Hall and the Smithsonian Institution; Mark Hubbe from Ohio State University; and William Pestle from the University of Michigan. This study was in part funded through the Neptune Isotope Lab at the Rosenstiel School.
About the University of Miami and Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric and Earth Science
The University of Miami is a private research university and academic health system with a distinct geographic capacity to connect institutions, individuals, and ideas across the hemisphere and around the world. The University's vibrant academic community comprises 12 schools and colleges serving more than 19,000 undergraduate and graduate students in more than 180 majors and programs. Located within one of the most dynamic and multicultural cities in the world, the University is building new bridges across geographic, cultural, and intellectual borders, bringing a passion for scholarly excellence, a spirit of innovation, and a commitment to tackling the challenges facing our world. The University of Miami is a member of the prestigious Association of American Universities (AAU).
Founded in 1943, the Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science is one of the world's premier research institutions in the continental United States. The School's basic and applied research programs seek to improve understanding and prediction of Earth's geological, oceanic, and atmospheric systems by focusing on four key pillars:
*Saving lives through better forecasting of extreme weather and seismic events.
*Feeding the world by developing sustainable wild fisheries and aquaculture programs.
*Unlocking ocean secrets through research on climate, weather, energy and medicine.
*Preserving marine species, including endangered sharks and other fish, as well as protecting and restoring threatened coral reefs. www.earth.miami.edu
