In historic mining towns, where mining activities were abandoned many decades or even centuries ago, legacy contaminations can be remobilized and redispersed, representing a threat for the environment and human health. This study focuses on urban soils (n = 19) in the town of Jihlava, the Czech Republic, one of the medieval centers of silver mining in central Europe. The basic geochemical characterization of the soils was combined with mineralogical investigations to understand the solid speciation of the metal(loid) contaminants, oral bioaccessibility tests, and exposure assessment. The total concentrations of the metal(loid)s in the original soils were not excessively high (up to 45.8 mg As/kg, 19.2 mg Cd/kg; 205 mg Cr/kg; 91.8 mg Cu/kg, 163 mg Pb/kg, 253 mg V/kg, 262 mg Zn/kg), although, in some cases, they exceeded the regulatory guidelines for agricultural and/or residential soils. A substantial increase in the metal(loid)s contents was confirmed for the < 48-µm soil fraction that was later used for the bioaccessibility tests. Scanning electron microscopy and the electron microprobe showed that ore-derived primary sulfides were rare in the studied soils. Still, hydrous ferric oxides rich in Cu, Pb and Zn and fragments of metallurgical slags composed of metal-containing glass and silicates (olivine) were prone to dissolution during extraction in a simulated gastric fluid (SGF, glycine solution acidified to pH 1.5 by HCl). The maximum bioaccessible concentrations corresponded to 4.69 mg As/kg, 1.75 mg Cd/kg, 2.02 mg Cr/kg, 20.3 mg Cu/kg, 81.6 mg Pb/kg, 16.2 mg V/kg, and 233 mg Zn/kg. Exposure estimates were carried out for children (10 kg) as a target group and a conservative soil ingestion rate (100 mg/d). However, the daily intake of all the studied contaminants was far below the tolerable limits. Our results show that the human health risk based on incidental soil ingestion in the studied area seems limited.

• Klíčová slova
• Human health, Oral ingestion, Contamination, Exposure,
• MeSH
• biologická dostupnost MeSH
• dějiny středověku MeSH
• hornictví * MeSH
• látky znečišťující půdu * analýza   MeSH
• lidé MeSH
• monitorování životního prostředí MeSH
• půda chemie   MeSH
• těžké kovy * analýza   MeSH
• velkoměsta MeSH
• Check Tag
• dějiny středověku MeSH
• lidé MeSH
• Publikační typ
• časopisecké články MeSH
• Geografické názvy
• Česká republika MeSH
• velkoměsta MeSH
• Názvy látek
• látky znečišťující půdu * MeSH
• půda MeSH
• těžké kovy * MeSH