Water gathering sites doubled as urban social meeting places.

Evidence

Watching the people running for water, you follow them and stop awhile at a nearby well or fountain, where you see men and women bathing, washing clothes, exchanging gossip. You see men with large buckets come by to fill their containers and then hurry off to deliver the water to nearby houses. And you see women coming with jars to get their own water. — Lyn H. Lofland, World of Strangers_ Order and Action in…, 165

Categorization

• XREF: Water sources as proto-public nodes parallels Lofland’s later claims (ch. onward) about how pre-industrial cities concentrated social life at specific gathering points; also connects to the reader’s interest in how urban space organizes encounter.