SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND SOCIETY IN ANCIENT
TIME
TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY IN THE STONE AGE
Technology is an old as man himself. Man was evidently a “tool -
making primates “from the day when the first human like creatures
roamed on earth, some 25 million years ago. Such very early human
remains as that of the “Peking man” dating back about half a million
years are accompanied by stone selected and often shaped to be used
as tools.
EARLY STONE TOOLS
 Archaeologists identify and classify early human settlements
by the shape and type of the tools found there.
 The first tool were of stone and the earliest stone tools is
called “Eoliths”.
 About a hundred thousand years ago primitive man was no
longer content with his chopper tool and pointed flakes.
He began to make more specialized tools such as:
 Pear shaped “hand axes”
 Scrapers
 Knives
 Pointed stones; and
 So forth
 The earliest writing appears in the near east about 3500 B.C.
INVENTION AND DISCOVERY
Two elements governed man’s technical progress.
 Discovery, the recognition and careful observation of new
natural objects and phenomena, is a very subjective event
until it leads to some practical application shared by others
either directly or indirectly.
 Invention, however, is a mental process in which various
discoveries and observations are combined and guided by
experience into some new tool or operation, much
experience was needed to lead to truly important inventions
and hence the material progress of ancient man was very
slow.
THE USE OF FIRE
 Man’s earliest conquest was fire. Ancient myths agree that
man was originally threatened and alarmed by forest fire, but
he eventually turned this phenomenon into a boon for
mankind.
 Fire was the most important discovery of paleolithic man,
who not only warmed his body but also applied fire to the
preparation of food.
 The oldest farming villages of the Near East did not contain
pots, but by the time of such early urban settlements as
Jericho (6000 B.C.) , pottery was known. The earliest pottery
took the shape of the gourds it was designed to displace, an
early example of the tendency of inventors to adopt a natural
form of in attempting to replace a natural function.
 The fuel used by the prehistoric man was the most primitive
kind. Dead branched, dry wood, shrub were commonly
used, but so was such low grade material as dried bone.
 In the East, thorny, shrubs, withered sticks, twigs and
dried dung were cheap fuels, supplemented by straw and
other farming refuse as soon as agriculture was introduce.
 Only the mountains regions had sufficient firewood. This
wood was made into the charcoal for industrial purposes.
ADVANCES IN STONE TOOL
 Flint, obsidian, or fine-grained lava could be used to
produce flakes by applying a stroke with the stone hammer
or mallet of certain points of the surface at exactly the right
angle.
 It was possible to produce long narrow flakes or blades for
other purposes. This could be achieved by detaching the
flakes by means of a wooden or bone punch stuck by the
mallet or hammerstone.
 Thus a blade could be shape into a tool with the two edges
sliced down obliquely at one end, forming a narrow chisel
edges. This tool is called “burin”, of which over twenty
types were used by the early nomadic food-gatherers.
THE BEGINNING OF MINING
 Good flaking stones that could be used for tools and weapons
were not too common. Sometimes they were found along the
shore when chalk outcroppings had been worn away by the
waves and previously embedded nodule of flint had been
washed into the beaches.
 Many of these stone age flint mines have been discovered,
and some have been yielded skeletons of miners with their
tools surprised by the crumbling of their “pipes” or shafts.
 By the dawn of bronze age (about 2500 B.C.), did flint
mining become a separate profession with miners living on
the spot year round and probably fashioning flint tools to be
traded by itinerant hawkers.
 Another early product to be mined, apart from the ochres and
other colored earths used as pigments for decoration
purposes, was salt.
TECHNOLOGY AND ASPECTS OF EARLY SOCIETY
 The discovery of treasure and merchandise of peddler who,
when threatened by danger, buried their possessions and
often never recover them. This developing trades is just one
of the signs that society was changing and with it, technology.
 For technology is a social product in this sense,that it is one
of the interacting factors in a society, which in those early
days was still very much limited by its food supply pattern.
 Early food-gathers and hunters devised a full range of tools
directed towards their foraging, hunting, and fishing. These
tools have been classified as “crushers, piercers, and
entanglers. Included among these were the spear and spear-
thrower, the simple and composite bow (typical on the hunter
and herds), the arrow head and harpoon, the blow-gun, lasso
and bolas, and fish hooks and traps, such as are still used by
primitive tribes in Africa and South America.
 In this early societies there was no specialization or division
of labor, and full time craftsmen were unknown. This holds
tue even for the larger part of the Neolithic Age, when the
gradual development of stock breeding and agriculture made
life safer and more dependable.
 The domestication of animals
 The beginnings of agriculture
 Building
 The urban revolution
 Transport
 Man at the dawn of history
TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY IN THE BRONZE AGES
The period in the development of human culture, where the time when
most of the implements and weapons are made up of bronze. Which is
the mixture of nine parts of copper and one part of tin. According to
Greek Mythology, the term ‘Bronze Age’ derives from the Ages of
Man. The stages of human existence on the Earth. The archaeologist
has discovered the traditional theories concerning about the origin of
copper and bronze technology. It had been thought that the use of
bronze had originated from the Middle East, but discoveries near Ban
Chiang, Thailand indicate that the bronze technology was known there
as early as 4500 BC.
THE RISE OF MESOPOTAMIA
The earliest settlements in the land of the Twin Rivers were founded
by the Sumerians (about 3000 B.C.), who dominated the southern part
of Iraq up to the Persian Gulf. Each city and the land around it were
believed to belong to the god or goddess of that city, who had
appointed his chief priest to be his representative and shepherd of his
people.
THE RISE OF EGYPT
Egypt too was originally inhabited by independent tribes, each of
which had established its own "water - province", a union of irrigation
and drainage units. Egyptian towns never competed economically as
did the Mesopotamian towns, nor did the temples dominate the
economy until later centuries, when they had grown very rich by royal
donations.
LEARNING
In both Egypt and Mesopotamia the only form of education was the
temple school, where those who were to become clerks, officials, and
priests, learned to read and write. These schools taught their pupils:
"order of things as established by the gods in the beginning" the
religious mysteries and other such knowledge restricted to this elite
group.
METALLURGY
 At an early stage man discovered and collected such native
metals as copper, gold, silver, and meteoric iron. Bronze Age
Materials
 During the early Bronze Age, metal workers started using
Tin-Bronze (a composition of 90% copper and 10% tin)
which was stronger and far easier to cast than copper alone.
TEXTILES
 Mesopotamia was the typical wool-producing country of
antiquity. Egypt was the typical linen-producing country,
and there the processing of flax was fully known by 3000
B.C.
the rich silt, which fertilized the land and helped to produce
abundant crops.
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY IN THE IRON AGE
Breakthroughs in iron smelting technology launched the beginning of
mass production and created major advancements in warfare. Iron
Age was a period in human history that followed the Bronze and
Stone Ages. Started between 1200 B.C. and 600 B.C., depending on
the region For some societies, including Ancient Greece, the start of
the Iron Age was accompanied by a period of cultural decline.
Humans may have smelted iron sporadically throughout the Bronze
Age, though they likely saw iron as an inferior metal. The use of iron
became more widespread after people learned how to make steel.
 Greek dark age - major hub of activity and culture on the
Mediterranean during the late Bronze Age. 1200 B.C.-
Mycenaean Greece collapsed. Archaeologists believe there
may have been a period of famine in which Greece’s
population dropped dramatically during this time.
 Late Iron Age- Greek economy had recovered and Greece
had entered its “classical” period. New system of
government- demokratia or “rule by the people.” PERSIAN
EMPIRE During the Iron Age in the Near East, nomadic
pastoralists - began to develop a state that would become
known as Persia. Persians established their empire at a time
after humans had learned to make steel. Sharper and
stronger steel weapons armored cavalry First Persian
Empire- founded by Cyrus the Great around 550 B.C
 Iron in Europe. Life in Iron Age Europe - primarily rural
and agricultural. Iron tools made farming easier.
 Celts lived across most of Europe during the Iron Age. Celtic
culture started to evolve as early as 1200 B.C. The Celts
migrated throughout Western Europe—including Britain,
Ireland, France and Spain.
 Celtic Round Houses bog bodies in Northern Europe,
hundreds of bog bodies dating back to the Iron Age have
been discovered. Bog bodies - corpses that have been
naturally mummified or preserved in peat bogs.
 Examples of Iron Age bog bodies Tollund Man,
found in Denmark, Gallagh Man from Ireland.
The mysterious bog bodies appear to have at least
one thing in common: They died brutal deaths.

OTHER CRAFTS
 Pottery and ceramics were produced by craftsmen working
in accordance with regional customs, but all contributing to
the development and diffusion of better kilns and glazes, and
stimulating such other technologies as metallurgy and glass-
making.

THE CONDITIONS OF TECHNOLOGY

 Among the preconditions of technology are such geographic
considerations as the availability of natural resources. The
importance of the geographic factor is nowhere more
obvious than in the histories of both Egypt and Mesopotamia,
with their reliance upon the river valleys, which made
agriculture possible.
 It was not just the fact that these were river valley
civilizations; the agricultural life of both regions depended
upon the fact that these rivers besides providing water for
irrigation periodically overflowed their banks and provided