Antiquity and Dr N.E. Spaulding, Climate Change Institute, University of Maine
Ice in the Swiss Alps began to be contaminated with lead between AD 640 and 660. That suggests Europeans had begun producing large quantities of silver – releasing lead as a side-effect – 25 years earlier than we thought, which could help explain the rise of powerful towns like London.
Historians have long known that north-west and central Europe largely abandoned gold coins for silver ones in the 600s, but exactly when and why has been unclear.
“Numismatists had …