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From ancient catacombs to modern subways, humans have always traveled underground for brief periods. But have entire societies of people ever lived underground?
Yes, but historically only in an emergency and when they had no other choice. Over the past few decades, however, that has started to change.
“The important thing to know about the underground is that we don’t belong there. Biologically, physiologically, our bodies just weren’t designed for life underground,” said Will Hunt, author of the book “Underground: a human story of the worlds under our feet”(Random House, 2019). “And yet there are times when we have retreated underground. “
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People throughout history have temporarily lived below the surface for a variety of reasons. If there were no materials to build houses, they would dig houses underground, Hunt told Live Science. In places with extreme climates, people would go underground in the summer to stay cool and in the winter to stay warm. The basement was also a safe place to hide from enemies.
For example, ancient peoples built the famous underground cities of Cappadocia in present-day Turkey, to protect themselves from both inclement weather and war. “They were geographically in a very strategic location,” Hunt said. “They were under constant attack.” Residents would retreat underground in an emergency, but they did not stay there for long, possibly weeks.
One of the largest underground cities in Cappadocia is Derinkuyu, which dates from around the 7th or 8th century and may have housed around 20,000 people, according to Atlas Obscura. Geophysicists have discovered that another recently discovered city in the region spans 5 million square feet (13 million square kilometers) and may be 371 feet (113 m) deep, according to National Geographic. If this is true, that would make the newly discovered city of Cappadocia about a third larger than Derinkuyu.
Cappadocia’s underground cities are an “architectural marvel,” Hunt said. The wells have sunk deep into the water table. The holes leading to the surface served as ventilation ducts. Layers of protection – including large circular stones that the ancients rolled past city entrances – separated those inside from invaders on the surface.
However, not all underground dwellings were as complex as those in Cappadocia. People also lived in natural and man-made caves, Hunt noted. Constructed caverns can be found anywhere with the right kind of geology – for example, stone hills made of puff, a gentle volcanic rock easy to dig. “They are very common,” he said. “You find people building cave dwellings all over the world.” Even in modern Australia, in a town called Coober Pedy, about half the population lives in “dugout canoes,” or holes dug in the sides of the hills, according to the report. Smithsonian magazine.
Many marginalized people have found refuge below the surface in the abandoned infrastructure of modern cities. There are fewer of these New York “moles” than there were in the 1980s, but perhaps more than 1,000 homeless people live in tunnels under city streets, Hunt said. . Many homeless people also live in tunnels under Las Vegas. And large communities of orphans live on the streets of Bucharest, Romania.
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As more and more people move to cities, more of these city dwellers may move underground. Places like Singapore are exploring options to build down. The technology to do it is already there, said Eun Hee Lee, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Nottingham campus in Malaysia, who studies the psychology of underground. The challenge is to convince people to go underground.
In fact, being underground has not yet been shown to cause negative psychological effects, as long as the lighting, room size, ceiling height, and other physical attributes of the setting are compatible with the surface, Lee said. For example, technologies such as skylights, which allow natural sunlight to illuminate underground spaces using materials such as reflective paint, could struggle. depression that results from a lack of sunlight. People may feel isolated from their counterparts on the surface, and they may feel a lack of control, but those feelings are manageable, Lee said. However, people still don’t like the idea of living underground.
Either way, Lee believes people around the world will start moving soon, inspired by places that lead the way, such as RESO, an underground city in Montreal, Canada, over 20 miles long and including shopping centers, offices, hotels and schools. “In reality, we will go underground soon. At least 30 years from now there will be more underground work environments, more underground entertainment venues,” she said. “It’s coming. It’s not just an idea.”
Originally posted on Live Science.
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