A link I managed to google quickly: https://phys.org/news/2019-05-roman-polluted-european-air-heavily.html https://phys.org/news/2019-05-roman-polluted-european

A link I managed to google quickly: https://phys.org/news/2019-05-roman-polluted-european-air-heavily.html https://phys.org/news/2019-05-roman-polluted-european-air-he... Sure, there was progress after the roman times, and sure, Dark Ages weren't really that dark, I totally agree. Scientific progress in particular kept going forward. But as a whole, the sheer quantity of civilization went down when the roman empire split, in measurable ways.