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Analysis of fine particulates from fuel burning in a reconstructed building at Çatalhöyük World Heritage Site, Turkey: assessing air pollution in prehistoric settled communities

Shillito, Lisa-Marie; Namdeo, Anil; Bapat, Aishwarya Vikram; Mackay, Helen; Haddow, Scott D.

Analysis of fine particulates from fuel burning in a reconstructed building at Çatalhöyük World Heritage Site, Turkey: assessing air pollution in prehistoric settled communities Thumbnail


Authors

Lisa-Marie Shillito

Anil Namdeo

Aishwarya Vikram Bapat

Scott D. Haddow



Abstract

The use of wood, dung and other biomass fuels can be traced back to early prehistory. While the study of prehistoric fuel use and its environmental impacts is well established, there has been little investigation of the health impacts this would have had, particularly in the Neolithic period, when people went from living in relatively small groups, to living in dense settlements. The UNESCO World Heritage Site of Çatalhöyük, Turkey, is one of the earliest large ‘pre-urban’ settlements in the world. In 2017, a series of experiments were conducted to measure fine particulate (PM2.5) concentrations during typical fuel burning activities, using wood and dung fuel. The results indicate that emissions from both fuels surpassed the WHO and EU standard limits for indoor air quality, with dung fuel being the highest contributor for PM2.5 pollution inside the house, producing maximum values > 150,000 µg m−3. Maximum levels from wood burning were 36,000 µg m−3. Average values over a 2–3 h period were 13–60,000 µg m−3 for dung and 10–45,000 µg m−3 for wood. The structure of the house, lack of ventilation and design of the oven and hearth influenced the air quality inside the house. These observations have implications for understanding the relationship between health and the built environment in the past.

Citation

Shillito, L., Namdeo, A., Bapat, A. V., Mackay, H., & Haddow, S. D. (2022). Analysis of fine particulates from fuel burning in a reconstructed building at Çatalhöyük World Heritage Site, Turkey: assessing air pollution in prehistoric settled communities. Environmental Geochemistry and Health, 44(3), 1033-1048. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10653-021-01000-2

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Jun 3, 2021
Online Publication Date Jun 21, 2021
Publication Date 2022-03
Deposit Date Nov 9, 2021
Publicly Available Date Mar 29, 2024
Journal Environmental Geochemistry and Health
Print ISSN 0269-4042
Electronic ISSN 1573-2983
Publisher Springer
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 44
Issue 3
Pages 1033-1048
DOI https://doi.org/10.1007/s10653-021-01000-2

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http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Copyright Statement
This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.





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