Overview
- High-precision analysis of 51 fossil teeth dated roughly 100,000 to 1.8 million years found episodic lead bands in about 73% of specimens across Africa, Asia, Europe and Oceania.
- The team attributes ancient uptake to natural sources such as contaminated water, soil, volcanic activity and wildfires, as well as lead released from bone stores during stress or illness.
- Brain organoids engineered with an archaic (Neanderthal-like) NOVA1 variant showed marked FOXP2 disruption after low-dose lead exposure, while organoids with the modern human NOVA1 variant were less affected.
- Exposure patterns varied by species, with Paranthropus robustus showing few low-level lines and Australopithecus and Homo displaying more frequent episodes, pointing to different exposure modes.
- The peer-reviewed paper in Science Advances advances a hypothesis that NOVA1 differences could have aided Homo sapiens’ social and language capacities, but specialists caution that broader samples and corroborating lines of evidence are needed.