Many cultures have been using appropriate technology per these definitions for eons, creating sophisticated cities and the equivalent of many modern comforts without pollution or ecosystem destruction. Only recently, through use of fossil fuels and modernization, have we moved away from the capacity to create non-polluting and self-sufficient ways to survive comfortably.
There are thousands of examples of indigenous people creating innovative and appropriate technology solutions. As one example, around the world, there are irrigation systems created by “primitive” people that are still not understood by modern engineers, such as an aqueduct system in India that perfectly gravity feeds water over many dozens of miles, distributing it efficiently. This is an area of study that has just started to capture the interest of modern societies as we face down climate change. It is lost technology (to modern society at least) that is well worth recovering. It could save us from our current trajectory of “having” to destroy ecosystems and each other in order to .
Julie Watson has documented 100 fascinating technologies in her book, Lo-TEK, Design by Radical Indigenism. The author’s premise is that nature based technologies are superior to many of the high tech versions we take for granted, because they are more resilient, better constructed, more renewable, more dependable, and less polluting.
The Khasis in Meghalaya, India use tree trunks, sliced down the middle and hollowed out, to create “root-guidance systems.” When they reach the other side of the river, they’re allowed to take root in the soil. Given enough time, a sturdy, living bridge is produced. These bridges can take decades to grow but last for hundreds of years and are flood resistant.
The Uros people are from Lake Titicaca in Peru and Bolivia. Their lives revolve around reeds. This is a great example of a people having access to a tremendous abundance of a single fast growing plant and using it creatively. They make reed houses, reed boats, reed flower tea, and use reeds as medicine. They trained aquatic birds to catch fish for them.
But most amazingly, the Uros build entire islands out of living reeds. The dense root structures of the living reed masses keeps the whole island together and floating on the lake and can last for decades along with their housing and other reed structures. They have been living on these floating islands since the 1500s when they were forced to take up residence on lake Titicaca after the Incans expanded into their terrestrial territory.
These are their bathrooms; they use the reeds to absorb and filter their waste. By using chinampas technology and more efficiently capturing human waste, they could have super productive gardens attached to their reed islands. Can you think of some uses for reeds like this, that last for decades as building materials, even while in contact with water?
Sumeria was an ancient civilization that existed in the cusp of the Tigris and Euphretes rivers from approximately 5000-2000BC. The ruins remaining give an idea of the type of society they had. Their cities resembled modern society in a number of ways.