This Might Be the World's First Polluted River — newser.com

(Newser) – It's no surprise that humans pollute their waterways, but now it appears we've been doing it a lot longer than thought. In a study published this month in Science of the Total Environment, researchers say they've found evidence of a polluted river from 7,000 years ago. Sediment from the river—now a dry riverbed—in Jordan shows a high level of copper pollution, according to a press release. And there aren't really any explanations for it except early human experimentation with metallurgy. "These populations were experimenting with fire, experimenting with pottery, and experimenting with copper ores," anthropologist Russell Adams says.

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