Not necessarily ~where~ humans found water – I understand it was lakes, streams, etc. – but our bodies seem so unnaturally built for hunching over a lake and drinking water. We don’t have 4 legs like other animals so we can’t do it very easily and I imagine it would hurt your back to be leaning over water like that. Did they scoop it up with their hands or something? I’m just curious if anyone definitively knows the answer to this. Thanks
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If they didn’t have something to hold water, they probably drank just like chimps do. You think of squatting and bending as uncomfortable because our modern life doesn’t usually require it anymore, but early humans didn’t have furniture so they did it literally all the time.
I grew up in a mountainous region where we did not have utensils available once in the outside. We either kneeled down and drank with over mouths touching the water. Or we used cupped hands to drink if feeling more graceful.
Water in our streams was probably not 100% safe. It did result in a lot of Gastro related long term issues but never a short term diarrhoea type issues.
Even though I am a pagan, I know the christian mythology for this one. It is in the bible, Judges 7:5
“So Gideon took the men down to the water. There the Lord told him, “Separate those who lap the water with their tongues as a dog laps from those who kneel down to drink.”
I caveman camp when I can, used to be once a year for a week or two, now it’s getting harder to get the time, but, basically, pick my spot, and leave my boots in the car.
Far as water, I can’t think of a time I made a tool for it. I did one time do some water powered tools, but that was late summer, was a real easy trip. Got bored.
Just used my hands. A good supply of clean water is the absolute most important part of picking a site. Second is tool material. Not all rock is good for making tools, but, usually I’m looking in the creek for rocks, so, that’s sorta a twofer to find a good creek.
Though, cause the subject got brought up, and I’m thinking about it, next time, I’m gonna use river cane to make a little fountain to drink out of. Take 10 minutes top and sounds nice
Have you ever heard of a container?
I mean it’s not the how I’m intersted in, what did they do when they got Giardia and other illnesses common in un-boiled/filtered water, they would have been shitting their guts out on the daily.
This gets commented a lot, but it’s worth repeating; early Homo sapiens weren’t less intelligent that we. They didn’t have the same knowledge base we have through millennia of innovation, but if you approached a lake or stream, how would you get a drink? They’d likely do the same.
Probably like chimps do.
And chimps actually have lots of different ways to drink water. They use their hands to cup, they use folded leaves as cups, and they even use “brushes,” they make themselves.
https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/archive/science-technology/chimps-create-unique-sticks-to-drink-water-348532
This would indicate that early humans used similar methods, and this could have been some of our “first tools.”
There is absolutely no way to know this.
The bible has a brief mention of drinking from a natural body of water and that is honestly the best I think you can get.
https://biblehub.com/judges/7-5.htm
The same way you do when you rinse after brushing your teeth: by bringing your cupped hands up to your mouth.
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