Early Technology

The earliest known human artifacts are roughly flaked stones used for chopping and scraping, found primarily in eastern Africa. Known as Oldowan tools, they date from about 2.3 million years before present, and serve to define the beginning of the Stone Age. The first toolmakers were nomadic groups of people who used the sharp edges of stone to process food. By about 40,000 years before present, humans had begun to use fire and to make a variety of tools, including pear-shaped axes, scrapers, knives, and other instruments of stone, bone, and other materials. They had also begun to use tools to make clothing and build shelters for protection from inclement weather. The use of tools can be observed in many members of the animal kingdom, but the capacity for creating tools to craft other objects distinguishes humans from all other animals.

The next big step in the history of technology was the control of fire. By striking flint against pyrites to produce sparks, people could kindle fires at will, thereby freeing themselves from the necessity of perpetuating fires obtained from natural sources. Besides the obvious benefits of light and heat, fire was also used to bake clay pots, producing heat-resistant vessels that were then used for cooking grains and for brewing and fermenting. Fired pottery later provided the crucibles in which metals could be refined. Advanced thought processes may well have first developed around the hearth, and it was there that the first domesticated animal, the dog, was tamed.

Early technologies were not centered only on practical tools. Colorful minerals were pulverized to make pigments that were then applied to the human body, to clay utensils, and to baskets, clothing, and other objects. In their search for pigments, early peoples discovered the green mineral malachite and the blue mineral azurite. When these copper-containing ores were hammered they did not turn to powder but bent instead, and they could be polished but not chipped. Because of these qualities, small bits of copper were soon made into jewelry. Early peoples also learned that if this material was repeatedly hammered and put into a fire, it would not split or crack. This process of relieving metal stress, called annealing, eventually brought human civilizations out of the Stone Age—particularly when, about 3000 bc, people also found that alloying tin with copper produces bronze (see Bronze Age). Bronze is not only more malleable than copper but also holds a better edge, a quality necessary for such objects as swords and sickles.

Although copper deposits existed in the foothills of Syria and Turkey, at the headwaters of the Tigris and Euphrates, the largest deposits of copper in the ancient world were found on the island of Crete (Kríti). With the development of seaworthy ships that could reach this extremely valuable resource, Knossos (Knosós) on Crete became a wealthy mining center during the Bronze Age.