People in this thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43631251 have been arguing that these people must have been some top class elite, and I totally get it. They are too good looking. But, that's how it was. The typical of the past would be above celebrity looks today. A lot of curent idols look stunted in comparison.
Existing rates of lead absorption are about 30 times higher than inferred natural rates
In fact, to fully avoid lead, you’d basically have to carefully grow food hydroponically. Certified Organic mineral fertilizers like basalt rock dust (which provide calcium, phosphorus, and potassium, etc) would obviously not be okay if you wanted to eliminate all lead, as basalt contains 7.5ppm lead, comparable to the average in the Earth’s crust.