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A continuous record of atmospheric lead since 12,370 carbon-14 years before the present (14C yr BP) is preserved in a Swiss peat bog. Enhanced fluxes caused by climate changes reached their maxima 10, 590 (14)C yr BP (Younger Dryas) and 8230 (14)C yr BP. Soil erosion caused by forest clearing and agricultural tillage increased lead deposition after 5320 (14)C yr BP. Increasing lead/scandium and decreasing lead-206/lead-207 beginning 3000 (14)C yr BP indicate the beginning of lead pollution from mining and smelting, and anthropogenic sources have dominated lead emissions ever since. The greatest lead flux (15.7 milligrams per square meter per year in A.D. 1979) was 1570 times the natural, background value (0.01 milligram per square meter per year from 8030 to 5320 (14)C yr BP).

[1] Abstract: Molybdenum isotopic compositions are precisely determined by MC-ICP-MS measurements using a Mo double spike. The double spike is added prior to chemical purification, so that laboratory and instrumental mass fractionations are separated from natural mass-dependent fractionation. Fractionation is determined on four Mo mass ratios, providing an internal consistency check.

Atmospheric Pb deposition since the Industrial Revolution was studied in western, central, and southern Switzerland using five rural peat bogs. Similar temporal patterns were found in western and central Switzerland, with two distinct periods of Pb enrichment relative to the natural background: between 1880 and 1920 with enrichments ranging from 40 to 80 times, and between 1960 and 1980 with enrichments ranging from 80 to 100 times. The fluxes also were generally elevated in those time periods: in western Switzerland between 1.16 and 1.55 µg cm -2 y -1 during the first period, and in western and central Switzerland between 0.85 and 1.55 µg cm -2 y -1 during the second period. Between the Industrial Revolution and 1985, nonradiogenic Pb became increasingly important in all five cores because of the replacement of coal by oil after ca. 1920, the use of Australian Pb in industry, and the extensive combustion of leaded gasoline after 1950. The introduction of unleaded gasoline in 1985 had a pronounced effect on the Pb deposition in all five cores. Enrichments dropped sharply (between 2 and 4 times), and the isotopic ratios reverted back toward (but not achieving) natural values. The cores from western and central Switzerland showed very similar isotopic trends throughout the time period studied, implying that these sites were influenced contemporaneously by similar pollution sources and atmospheric pathways. Southern Switzerland revealed a different record with respect to the Pb pollution: it was dominated by a single massive Pb enrichment dated between 1930 and 1950. During this period the Pb enrichment factor reached ∼200 times background and the Pb flux was ∼27 µg cm -2 y -1 , more than an order of magnitude higher that at the western and central sites. This core also had significantly different post-1950 changes in the Pb isotope ratios.

We describe the physical context of the Dinaledi Chamber within the Rising Star cave, South Africa, which contains the fossils of Homo naledi. Approximately 1550 specimens of hominin remains have been recovered from at least 15 individuals, representing a small portion of the total fossil content. Macro-vertebrate fossils are exclusively H. naledi, and occur within clay-rich sediments derived from in situ weathering, and exogenous clay and silt, which entered the chamber through fractures that prevented passage of coarser-grained material. The chamber was always in the dark zone, and not accessible to non-hominins. Bone taphonomy indicates that hominin individuals reached the chamber complete, with disarticulation occurring during/after deposition. Hominins accumulated over time as older laminated mudstone units and sediment along the cave floor were eroded. Preliminary evidence is consistent with deliberate body disposal in a single location, by a hominin species other than Homo sapiens, at an as-yet unknown date.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.09561.001

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