The fellow in the museum is good: intelligent, informative, clear. Get a better presenter. I'm sitting here 4 years after this video was posted, watching on a computer, yes, but without wifi, and _that's_ what he comes up with as an example of something we can't imagine life without? Are you kidding? People take technology-free, unplugged vacations/holidays _on purpose_ . Refrigeration, that's a biggie. Even telephones. But _wifi_ ? Lordy.
The late paleolithic, copper and bronze ages released so much lead, copper, and other metals into the air that it left observable layers in arctic ice bores. Poisoning from arsenic was quite common before tin was substituted in bronze alloys. Later, cities like Rome were well known to be encased in clouds of pollution from fires, smelting, forges, cookfires, as well as from sewage. One could see and smell the city's pollution far before reaching it. There were borders. They weren't as clear cut as lines on maps, they were mostly formed by natural boundaries like rivers and mountains and the like. Even then, there existed maps which clearly show bordered regions. Human history is nothing if not warring across borders. In fact, this is one of the key motivators for technological development. All of this is well-documented, not only by contemporaneous accounts, but also by modern research.
Analog computer can be made out of water flow, a guy in UK built that once to calculate some complex macroeconomic model. I say that if you can figure good and reliable NAND gate (Logic formula basically) system out of that device, you can make computers pretty much from any natural phenomena.
The Minoans had running water and flushing toilets 4000 years ago. The women went topless too. Not a bad shout for an ancient time/place to live. I hope the simulation re-spawns me there next time around.
obviously they got their iron from meats and come to think of it vegetarianism was made possible by iron age ... not only that iron pots must have reshaped our population genetics because now those who could benefit from iron pot cooking survived better and their numbers must have increased ... so now that we are using more and more non-iron for cooking pots we should see these people at disadvantage
