On Feb 03, 2006, at 3:00 pm, Andrea Hughett wrote:

> In my medieval history class last night we were
> discussing the fall of Rome, and one of the reasons,
> according to my professor, was that the Romans ate
> mainly bread, and drank water from lead pipes, leading
> to lead poisoning and iron deficiency.  This in turn
> affected not only their intelligence and reaction
> speed, but also lowered the birth rate drastically.


Andrea,

I've wondered about this recently too.  Many civilisations have  
collapsed because they destroyed the land they were farming.  Do you  
know if there is any evidence that over-farming helped their decline?


> Meanwhile the barbarians on the other side of the
> Rhine ate lots of meat and greens, which made them
> strong, healthy, and prolific.

To hell with civilisation.  I wanna be a barbarian :D


Ashley