What did people drink before water?
So instead of drinking water, many people drank fermented and brewed beverages like beer, ale, cider, and wine.
In ancient times, some people harvested rain in big containers, but many more people used water that had collected naturally in streams, rivers, and in the ground. They could find groundwater rushing by in rivers, or bubbling up from underground through a spring. They could also dig deep into the earth to find water.
The oldest non-water beverage is probably milk, as humans have been drinking the milk of other animals since we first domesticated them during the Neolithic period.
Contrary to what is found all over the Internet on the subject, the most common drink was water, for the obvious reason: It's free. Medieval villages and towns were built around sources of fresh water. This could be fresh running water, a spring or, in many cases, wells.
In prehistoric times, water may have been carried in bladders of dead animals stitched together, animal horns or plant shells such as coconuts. Later, clay or mud was used to seal wicker baskets for carrying water. The ancients began using pottery to carry water in 5000 BC.
Chemical analyses recently confirmed that the earliest alcoholic beverage in the world was a mixed fermented drink of rice, honey, and hawthorn fruit and/or grape. The residues of the beverage, dated ca. 7000–6600 BCE, were recovered from early pottery from Jiahu, a Neolithic village in the Yellow River Valley.
Never drink water from a natural source that you haven't purified, even if the water looks clean. Water in a stream, river or lake may look clean, but it can still be filled with bacteria, viruses, and parasites that can result in waterborne diseases, such as cryptosporidiosis or giardiasis.
For those primitive humans, cleaner water meant improving its turbidity, smell, and taste, that is, only the physical properties that can be perceived through our senses. The first systems simply consisted in letting the water sit in vessels or wells to allow decantation and for the water to be less turbid.
The earlier Iron Age system, known as the Warren Shaft (after Captain C. Warren who rediscovered it in the nineteenth century), enabled free access to water through a system of underground tunnels and a shaft.
Wine was the drink of choice at the very heart of ancient Rome's culture. Ciders and other fermented drinks were known but were all second to wine. Wine was a 'civilized' drink and became central to the Roman way of life. Beer, fermented grains, and milk were decidedly un-Roman and could carry barbarous connotations.
How did people in the past purify water?
As ancient Hindu texts reveal, they used heat, sunlight, and copper to purify water. Filtration using cloth, sand, and charcoal was also used to capture other contaminants. Purified water is then stored in earthen vessels. This enriches it with minerals and increases its alkalinity, improving its bioavailability.
Many families had to boil their well water to kill off contaminants. When well-digging failed to reach water, families were forced to collect rainwater in barrels, cisterns, and pans.
In the prehistoric past, our ancestors sourced their supplies from lakes, wetlands and rivers, but these amount to just 0.01% of all water on Earth today. Fresh water has always been scarce.
