08-06-2012, 01:44 PM
Quote:Although I appreciate the analysis on water it would seem that if all well water - and streams too for that matter - were as polluted as you say I am suprised that anyone survived at all! Perhaps due to the amount of bacteria present in the ancien diet they had far more robust gut action than we do.
According to population studies many didn't survive because of polluted water - especially the young children. Those children with sufficient resilience went on to breed: those without, didn't. Evolution in brutal action. After a few generations you have a robust, local population, in-part immune to some of the local bugs but strangers/legionaries using the same well-water supply probably didn't have the same immunity.
As for the wells at Silchester - this was published (31-july-2012) in the Guardian. In it Amanda Clarke is quoted, "Clarke, after supervising the excavation of two noisome wells every season, up to six metres deep, and usually sodden and stinking at the bottom, wonders if they didn't eventually just poison all their water sources. "We've been digging down through wells which became latrines over older wells and older latrines, layer upon layer. There must have been enormous problems with contaminated water on a site like this with no river. Maybe finally they just ran out of new places to dig wells."
She is talking of the end for Silchester and speculating that the failing water supply was the cause for abandonment. Others on the dig think that the Saxons drove the inhabitants off, tumbled the walls and infilled the wells.
Either way, the well=latrine=well alternation must have produced dangerous water and it's this aspect that I think the Roman army commanders understood.
Regards, Steve Kaye
