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6000 BCE
archery
Archery is the method by which a person uses the spring power stored in a bent stick to shoot a slender pointed projectile a great distance at rapid speed. A very useful technology, whether employed against game animals or against other human beings. Now it's considered just recreation. -
Period: 6000 BCE to
history of technology
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Period: 6000 BCE to 1000 BCE
ancient era
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5000 BCE
irrigation
The first hydraulic engineers recorded in history were Sunshu Ao (6th Century BC) and Ximen Bao (5th Century BC) of China who both worked on extensive irrigation projects for the emperor (whoever that happened to be at the time) in the Sichuan region; with waters from the “four circuits of rivers” lifted into and moved through channels by chain pumps powered by humans or oxen, it was a marvel of ancient engineering. -
4500 BCE
sailing
between 5500 and 5000 BC. Tomb paintings c. 3200 BC show reed boats under sail on the Nile. A few hundred years later, the Egyptians were venturing along the shores of the Mediterranean. Along every coastline, from China to Scandinavia, the technology of sailing – distinctive to each seagoing culture – was evolving -
4500 BCE
bronzes working
The earliest bronze artifacts – actually, arsenic bronze, alloys of metallic arsenic rather than tin – found by archaeologists in Iranian tombs date back to the fifth millennium BC. Tin-bronze was eventually found to be superior to arsenic-bronze ... and the fumes of the alloying process didn't kill the bronze worker, so that was a plus. The oldest (c. 4500 BC) tin-bronze items have been found in a Vinca site in Serbia, and other early examples include odd bits found in China and Mesopotamia. -
4000 BCE
animal husbandry
goats and sheep were domesticated in the Middle East by about 10,000 BC. Next, men domesticated cattle, probably in the Middle East also according to geneticists. Then, around 4000 BC, horses on the Eurasian steppes. And then followed many of the rest of earth's creatures. In time, most of the domesticated animals became so tame that they could not survive on their own in the wild. Those that couldn't be domesticated got hunted, by men on horseback ... with dogs. -
4000 BCE
mineing
dig it up. That's the basic premise behind mining, one of civilization's earliest and most pragmatic technologies. The Neolithics mined flint in England and France about 4000 BC; the ancient Egyptians mined malachite at Maadi between 2600 and 2500 BC, using the hard stone for ornamentation and pottery. These were generally open pit mines, or shallow shafts (less than 100 feet deep) such as the Athenian silver mines at Laurium, where over 20 thousand slaves labored. -
2500 BCE
pot
The earliest known ceramics are the Gravettian culture figurines (little, faceless representations of fat women) that date back to between 29 and 25 thousand BC. These were shaped by hand, and fired in a pit. Somewhere around 12000 years ago, clever folk figured out that clay – often mixed with sand, grit, crushed shells, or bone – could be used to make more useful items: pots, cups, plates, bowls, storage jars, and so forth. In Japan, -
2000 BCE
weel
The invention of the wheel comes in the late Neolithic Age, and along with the advance of several other technologies kicks off the Bronze Age. Archaeological evidence for wheeled vehicles appears in the fourth millennia BC, more or less at the same time in Mesopotamia, the Caucasus and Central Europe (obviously, an idea whose time had come). In China the wheel was certainly in existence by 1200 BC, when Chinese chariots appeared. -
2000 BCE
currency
when a form of receipt was used to show ownership of stored grain in temples in Sumer. The Egyptians soon adopted the practice for their own grain warehouses, so that individuals could claim a portion they had “banked” therein. Then small bits of rare metals, a lot easier to keep track of than written receipts , came to represent certain amounts of various commodities, able to be exchanged … or hoarded. Thus, wealth was determined by how many of these bits a person had. -
2000 BCE
mathematics
The term “mathematics” is derived from the Greek mathema, meaning “knowledge, study, or learning.” Appropriate, given that it is the science of science, focused on quantity, measurement, structure, logic and change. Mathematics, according to some, is also the art of art, focused on space, shape, relationship, perspective, and fractals. Not to mention mathematics relationship to music. -
1000 BCE
writing
the earliest form of writing was “pictography,” in which little pictures represent an item or action. This may work adequately for very simple topics, but other methods become necessary when more esoteric topics are discussed. (Drawing a picture of a sheep may be easy, but how about a picture of the sound a sheep makes when it falls off of a pyramid?) Ideographs (pictures representing ideas) and pictographic writing never developed enough to be able to transmit meanings well. -
1000 BCE
iron working
While the use of iron has been dated back to 4000 BC, the Hittites were the first to extract the ore, smelt it and fashion weapons – thus setting off the Iron Age around 1200 BC. In Asia, iron working developed at about the same time; iron Chinese artifacts have been unearthed dating back to around 600 BC. From those two places, using iron for weapons and tools spread quickly across the globe, except in the Americas where the natives continued to hit each other with rocks -
1000 BCE
engineering
Engineering is the science (or perhaps “art,” if engineers themselves are involved in the discussion) of using science to design things: buildings, roads and bridges, machines, and other materially useful things. The term is somewhat vague – consider for example, software “engineering.” Originally the term referred only to creating “engines” of war; the Romans applied it to all sorts of public works, since their legions were building roads, bridges and walls all over the empire -
Period: 1000 BCE to 500 BCE
classical era
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990 BCE
shipbuilding
Archaeological evidence indicates that humans sailed to Borneo from Asia 120 thousand years ago aboard constructed ships; and later to New Guinea and Australia some 50 thousand years ago. In the fourth millennium BC, the Egyptians were constructing boat hulls from planks of wood, using treenails to hold them together and pitch to make them watertight. Across the ocean in India, the first shipbuilding docks were being utilized by the Harappans around 2500 BC. -
790 BCE
construction
When the architects and engineers get done mucking about, the contractors take over. Once there was agriculture and a reason to stay in one place, the first huts were constructed by the people who would live in them. As cities grew during the Bronze Age, professional construction workers – just bricklayers and carpenters at first – arose. This new class of skilled workers, including lots of slaves, literally laid the foundations for civilization. -
750 BCE
horseback riding
There is archaeological evidence that around 4000 BC humans had used bits on their horses in the basins of the Dnieper and Don rivers; skeletons of horses found in the region shows signs that the horses chomped on bits. Thus, horseback riding. It is thought that the Scythians of the steppes may well have been the first to develop the stirrup and the saddle, although the historical argument is as yet unconvincing. -
700 BCE
celestial navigation
In Medieval Europe, celestial navigation was considered one of the seven mechanical arts, and the first mariner's astrolabe was used in the Mediterranean by Muslim merchants. (Perhaps by design, the astrolabe also allowed Muslim travelers to locate the Qibla and calculate the times for the Salat.) Meanwhile, the use of the magnetic compass spread from China across civilization. -
500 BCE
masonry
the Assyrians of the Fertile Crescent lacked easy access to stone but possessed rich deposits of clay, which they sun-dried into bricks. The Babylonians too used brick, held together with mortar made of lime and pitch. The Harappa city in now-Pakistan was built around 2600 BC with bricks and gypsum mortar (now called “plaster of Paris”). -
Period: 500 BCE to 1350
medieval era
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350 BCE
education
Humans learn things, . Obviously education has been around as long as mankind has. Through most of history, it was an informal affair, parents teaching their children the skills they needed to know to survive and be productive As a tribe expanded and grew more prosperous, village elders and priests might educate the children while the healthy adults gathered food, built stuff and made war. Eventually a wealthy society might have formal classes for the more important children. -
322 BCE
stirrups
The idea of stirrups spread quickly, thanks to those barbarian horsemen of Central Asia who saw the advantages. Images from ancient India c. A Kushan engraving made a century later shows a mounted rider with platform stirrups. Digging up Korean tumuli from the 5th Century AD yield stirrups, such as those found at Pak Chong-dong and Pan-gyeje; and by the Nara period similar ones were in use in Japan. Meanwhile, European riders had to make do without stirrups until the 8th Century, -
50
machinery
Thus, during the supposedly “Dark” Ages, men in various parts of the world began to devise machinery in which a tradeoff between distance and force was the principle behind producing mechanical energy. The complete dynamic theory of simple machines was worked out by Galileo Galilei and published in his Le Meccaniche in 1600; his was the first – or the first to publish anyway – insight that machines did not create useful energy but merely transformed it from one type to another. -
450
castles
castles dating back to the early 10th Century AD when feudal lords sought to insure their power and influence. Some were little more than cold, dirty square stone boxes; others were fairy structures with tall towers, crenelated parapets and flying buttresses. But rather than the romantic visions of noble knights, damsels in distress, great feasts and throwing the barbarians back from the moat, castles served the ultimate utilitarian role in feudal society – imposing the lord's will on the land. -
500
military engineering
With the development of gunpowder, military engineers became vital, both in designing fortifications to withstand cannon and devising ways to get the cannon close enough to the fortifications to be effective. Sappers, for instance, first appeared in the French army; their task was to excavate zig-zag trenches towards the enemy walls to protect infantry and artillery, all while under musket and cannon fire. In the British army, miners tunneled under enemy walls to place explosive charges -
1240
gunpowder
the Arabs sometime between 1240 and 1280 AD developed better recipes, purer niter, and more deadly weapons – notably cannon and a primitive arquebus. Some historical texts state that the Mamluks used the first cannon in history against the Mongols during the battle at Ain Jalut in 1260, but this is open to debate. The earliest description of a “portable hand cannon,” however, does appear in an Arabic manuscript from the 14th -
1275
banking
During the 14th Century, avaricious and clever individuals in families such as the Bardi, de Medici, Peruzzi, Gondi and others established permanent banks in their home cities of Florence, Genoa, Venice, Siena, Rome and elsewhere across Italy. The oldest bank still open is the Monte dei Paschi in Siena, operating continuously since 1472. Soon enough the ruling princes got into the act; in 1407 the first state-chartered bank, the Bank of St. George, was founded by the Doge of Genoa -
1300
square rigging
speed -
1300
square rigging
speed -
Period: 1350 to
Renaissance era
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1400
printing
No technology since writing so impacted civilization as did movable-type printing. Woodblock printing had been used for decades in China, India and Europe. The pecia system developed in the early 13th Century at Italian universities gave booksellers a method for producing multiple copies of a book in a relatively short time. But books remained expensive, and possessions only for the educated elite. -
1455
metal casting
more iron -
cartography
The oldest “map” to have been discovered is a depiction of what may be local terrain features about Catal Huyuk in Anatolia, dated to the 7th millennium BC. But the first ink splatters that are definitely a map is the “House of the Admiral” wall painting dating to the Minoan civilization c. 1600 BC. Around the 4th Century BC, the Greeks and the Romans were making somewhat more portable maps. And Ptolemy produced his famous treatise on cartography, 'Geographia,' in the 2nd Century AD. -
mass production
chinese crossbows with interchangeable parts, and assembly line production of books. But in the Renaissance, Venice began mass-producing ships to maintain their grip on the Mediterranean in their famed Arsenal, using prefabricated parts and assembly lines that would not be matched for output for three centuries. At its peak of efficiency, the Arsenal could produce a seaworthy ship in a day and employed some ten thousand workers. -
Period: to
Industrial era
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industrialization
more! -
Economics
money -
astronomy
stars+ -
steam power
trains -
rifling
long gun -
balistacts
guns -
sanitation
inportant -
Period: to
Modern era
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chemistry
chemicals -
radio
communication -
flight
fly -
combustion
boom -
electricity
power -
Petroleum Refining
oil -
Replaceable Parts
more -
steel
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nuclear fusion
big boom -
Period: to
atomic era
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advanced flight
wooosh -
plastics
bad to nature -
rocketry
rocket -
computers
gamers -
Synthetic Materials
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Satellites
space -
Period: to
Information Era
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Information Era
phone -
Composites
hu -
Stealth Technology
oh yea -
Robotics
robots -
Nuclear Fusion
big boom -
Nanotechnology
what -
Period: to
future era
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Offworld Missions
mars -
Advanced Power Cells
unlimited power -
Advanced AI
the ai uprising -
Predictive Systems
panic -
Smart Materials
big brain -
Cybernetics
yes