How did ancient people drink water without getting sick? Not by cleaning it: by choosing it. Animals and chimps dig in sand for cleaner water, and so did people; humans are ‘the water-saving ape’; springs kept flowing for a thousand years at Olduvai; 60,000-year-old engraved ostrich-egg water bottles; then settling down put waste next to the water (whipworm at Çatalhöyük, Giardia in Jerusalem), and the fix took wells, aqueducts, one London pump in 1854 and chlorine. Plus the myth that people drank beer instead of water, put on trial.
In this video:
• How did ancient people and early humans drink water without getting sick?
• How did ancient humans find water and survive without clean water?
• What were the first water bottles and the oldest wells?
• Did people really drink beer instead of water?
Chapters
0:00 The glass by your bed
0:56 Take a guess: which water?
2:07 The water-saving ape
2:51 Life at the spring (1.8 million years ago)
3:36 The first water bottle (60,000 years ago)
4:31 When settling down poisoned the water
6:01 The first wells
6:56 Did they boil it?
7:51 Myth on trial: beer instead of water
8:23 The 1854 clue
9:11 Water today
9:39 Back to the glass by your bed
Sources
Humans, the water-saving ape: https://today.duke.edu/2021/03/humans-evolved-be-water-saving-ape
How long can you live without water: https://www.healthline.com/health/food-nutrition/how-long-can-you-live-without-water
Why animals dig waterholes, Ruaha: https://www.izw-berlin.de/en/press-release/why-do-animals-dig-waterholes.html
Chimpanzee well-digging, Budongo: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9273564/
The Kalahari sip-well: http://www.icwa.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/JGW-19.pdf
Olduvai spring wetland: https://archaeology.org/news/2016/03/10/160310-olduvai-gorge-landscape/
Springs and human evolution: https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/news-archive/2014/study-ties-groundwater-to-human-evolution
Two species’ footprints, Lake Turkana: https://news.stonybrook.edu/university/fossil-footprints-offer-direct-evidence-for-two-extinct-human-ancestors-sharing-the-same-landscapes/
Engraved ostrich-egg containers, Diepkloof: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/an-60000-year-old-artistic-movement-recorded-in-ostrich-egg-shells
San ostrich-egg canteens: https://lammuseum.wfu.edu/2021/04/san-ostrich-egg-canteen/
Parasites at Çatalhöyük: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/05/190531085417.htm
Humans and parasites through time: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/parasitology/article/long-and-intimate-association-between-humans-and-parasites-through-time/FA9B290B3DA1021EE934E04DDBC3CA79
Must Farm parasites: https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/ancient-faeces-reveal-how-marsh-diet-left-bronze-age-fen-folk-infected-with-parasites
Ötzi’s body: https://www.iceman.it/en/oetzi/the-body
Oldest Giardia, Jerusalem toilets: https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/early-toilets-reveal-dysentery-in-old-testament-jerusalem
Ancient well at Kissonerga, Cyprus: https://phys.org/news/2009-06-ancient-body-cyprus.html
Oldest timber wells, Leipzig: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/12/121220080130.htm
Hippocrates, On Airs, Waters, and Places: https://classics.mit.edu/Hippocrates/airwatpl.8.8.html
Sushruta Samhita on water: https://www.wisdomlib.org/hinduism/book/sushruta-samhita-volume-1-sutrasthana/d/doc141676.html
Boiling stones: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/140430-neanderthals-cook-food-evolution-science
Rome’s aqueducts: https://www.waterhistory.org/histories/rome/t1.html
Oldest beer, Raqefet Cave: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/09/180912111907.htm
Medieval people drank water: https://www.medievalists.net/2023/05/drink-water-middle-ages/
John Snow and the Broad Street pump: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7150208/
History of drinking water treatment: https://archive.cdc.gov/www_cdc_gov/healthywater/drinking/history.html
1 in 4 lack safe drinking water: https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/fast-facts-1-4-people-globally-still-lack-access-safe-drinking-water-who-unicef
200 million hours a day collecting water: https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/unicef-collecting-water-often-colossal-waste-time-women-and-girls
Photos
Engraved ostrich eggshell: Photo: Nkansah Rexford, CC BY-SA 3.0
Ostrich-egg water bottle of the Kalahari: Photo: Wolfgang Sauber, CC BY-SA 4.0
A brick well at Mohenjo-daro: Photo: Najamuddin Shahwani, CC BY 3.0
Aqua Claudia aqueduct: Photo: Estormiz, CC0
The John Snow pump replica: Photo: Whispyhistory, CC BY-SA 4.0
Rise of Sapiens tells history explainers about how humans rose, drawn and told from sourced facts. The research and script are ours; the illustrations, animation, narration voice and music were made with AI tools. Written and produced by Balaji Hariharan & Dhivya Kumar. A new question every week, so subscribe 🔔
#history #ancienthumans #stoneage #prehistory
source
