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•Petrographic and geochemical characterisation of Hellenistic to Early-Middle Imperial fine pottery samples from the archaeological site of Sagalassos in SW Anatolia.•Hellenistic Colour Coated Wares (CCW) and Gray Wares with Black Slip (GWBS) were locally produced at the site using the same raw materials as the ones used for the subsequent mass-produced Sagalassos Red Slip Ware (SRSW), namely clays from the nearby NW parts of the valley of Çanaklı.•SRSW appears as a continuation of the Hellenistic tradition in slipped pottery at Sagalassos in terms of clay raw materials used.•The geochemical signature of pottery from Sagalassos and environs shows great potential for elucidating patterns of economic production and distribution and exploring the territorial development of the city in Hellenistic and Roman times.

The mining of metals in low income countries is often associated with high exposure to dust that contributes to metal exposure. Here, dust ingestion estimates were made from fecal excretion of inert tracers with corrections for dietary contribution. The study took place in the cobalt mining area of Lubumbashi (DR Congo) and involved 120 nonoccupationally exposed participants in the dry season, with 51 of these being repeated in the rainy season. For each participant, duplicate meals (0–96 h), feces (24–120 h), and indoor/outdoor dust (<250 μm) were collected. The dust ingestion estimates (g day–1) were derived from Nb, Ti, and V as best tracers and were 0.28 (geometric mean), 3.3 (mean), and 13 (P95); these values are almost a factor 10 above currently accepted estimates for the general population in high income countries. Mean dust ingestion in the dry season was twice that of the rainy season, and the P95s were significantly higher in children (3–15 years) than in male adults and toddlers; geophagy (>40 g day–1) was suspected in three individuals. These data explain the previously reported extreme cobalt exposures in children and support the need to manage dust in the metal mining operations.