Lead is often thought of as a modern toxin, but a new study has found that it's been haunting us and our ancestors for almost 2 million years. Stranger still, exposure could actually have given humans an edge over our closest relatives.

An international team of researchers analyzed the lead content of 51 fossilized hominid teeth, dated to between 100,000 and 1.8 million years old.

Samples came from , Neanderthals , and a few early species, as well as more distant relatives like , and fossil species of orangutans and baboons.

"We found clear signals of episodic lead exposure in 73 percent of the specimens (71 percent for hominins and )," the team writes in their paper.

The dangers of lead exposure are well documented, but the team suggests that they might have been even worse fo

See Full Page