Nick Stockton
science
06.23.17
08:00 pm
Plastic Water Bottles Might Have Poisoned Ancient Californians
You've heard the PSA: Recycle that plastic water bottle, or else archaeologists will be digging it up thousands of years from now. What you probably haven't heard is that archaeologists are already digging up plastic water bottles that are thousands of years old.
This not evidence of time travel. These bottles aren't clear, and they don't have labels. They're pitch black—made by indigenous tribes who coated large, woven bulbs with a tar-like substance called bitumen. Scientists have known about these bottles for years. But what they hadn't considered was whether these plastic bottles contributed to the declining health in some old societies, like the Native American tribes that once lived off the coast of California. Skeletons dating back thousands of years evidence a mysterious physical decline. A new study, published today in the journal Environmental Health, measured the toxicity of making plastic from oily bitumen, and of storing liquid in the bottles.
https://www.wired.com/story/plastic-water-bottles-might-have-poisoned-ancient-californians/
