Science
Related: About this forumResearchers Humans have been polluting rivers for 7,000 years
By Karen Graham Dec 4, 2016.
Human-caused environmental pollution is usually associated with the start of the modern industrial era, but researchers looking for evidence of when humans first began using metal tools may have found the world's first polluted river.
For centuries, humans have used rivers, streams and the sea as a garbage dump, not realizing the consequences of their actions. Actually, it was just something people did to get rid of their waste.
But an international team of anthropologists, looking for clues on how man first transitioned from using stone tools to metal ones discovered a 7,000-year-old dried up riverbed in the Wadi Faynan region of southern Jordan that had high levels of copper pollution in the sediment, according to a press release.
Professor Russell Adams, with the Department of Anthropology at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, along with his colleagues, found evidence of the early anthropogenic or human-caused pollution, as well as the smelting of copper.
More:
http://www.digitaljournal.com/tech-and-science/science/researchers-humans-have-been-polluting-rivers-for-7-000-years/article/481018#ixzz4SbrzwJhQ
TreasonousBastard
(43,049 posts)surface fresh water sources largely for waste disposal. Sewer systems have been found not only in Roman settlements, but ancient Indus Valley settlements.
The Babylonians had well developed sewage systems with ceramic pipes leading into their rivers.
muriel_volestrangler
(101,315 posts)and even more before Babylon or Rome. So, yes, it's news.
MFM008
(19,808 posts)A toilet in 55BC is different that pouring radioactive waste in it now..
You don't want to drink it but it will recover quicker with A than B.
hunter
(38,311 posts)Elements like lead and mercury and cadmium, dangerous pollutants released in metal refining and burning coal, have a "half life" of FOREVER, and never go away. Organic (carbon-based) wastes, for example PCBs, coal tar wastes, DDT... have a similar resilience.
20 THOUSAND years until Chernobyl is livable again...................
eppur_se_muova
(36,262 posts)Think "tannery" -- the production of leather has always been carried out on the outskirts of settled areas because of the utter foulness produced. Or "smelting furnace", for the same reason.