Bone cadmium and lead in prehistoric inhabitants and domestic animals from Gran Canaria

Abstract

Both lead and cadmium exposures derive from natural sources and also from industrialisation and certain habits,such as cigarette smoking in the case of cadmium .Some of these sources only affect human beings .The aim of thisstudy was to determine the levels of lead and cadmium in bone samples of 16 prehispanic inhabitants of GranCanaria, 24 prehispanic domestic animals(sheep, goat and pigs)from this island, 8 modern individuals, and 13modern domestic animals .We found that modern individuals showed higher bone Cd values(means516.7"352.49mgykg, ranges167.20–1125mgykg)than prehistoric ones(means85.13"128.96mgykg, ranges2.97–433mgykg).Values of prehistoric individuals did not differ from those of the prehistoric animals(means70.54"46.86mgykg,ranges11.06–216.50mgykg), but were higher than those of the modern animals(means7.31"10.35mgykg,ranges0–35.62mgykg) .In the same way, modern individuals and modern animals showed approximately 7-foldhigher bone Pb than ancient individuals and ancient animals, respectively .Ancient animals showed significantly lowerPb values than all the other groups, whereas modern animals showed Pb values comparable to those of the ancientindividuals .A significant correlation was observed between bone Pb and Cd(rs0.61,P-0.001) .Since bonecadmium accumulation leads to osteoporosis, we have also tested the relationship between histomorphometricallyassessed trabecular bone mass and bone cadmium both in modern and ancient individuals .No significant relationshipwas found between these two parameters. 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved