History of Technology

Paleolithic - 500,000 BCE - 10,000 BCE - Artifacts: Stone axes, bone needles, knives, hammers, shields, bows, musical instruments.

Mesolithic- 10,000 BCE - 4000 BCE Artifacts: leatherwork, basketry, fishing tackle, stone axes and wooden objects, canoes and bows, domesticating animals, stone circles

Neolithic Age - 4000 BCE - 2300 BCE -development of agriculture and an increasing emphasis on year-round settlements. Artifacts: pottery, polished stone tools, spinning and weaving tools, wooden plows, sickles.

Improved diet and enhanced security enabled early humans to increase their numbers.

The gradual domestication of plants and animals led to the beginnings of settled communities

Dependable year-round food supply enables division of labor and specialization that spurs invention and innovation.

Clock- 1250 -1300 CE

Compass - 1044 CE

Train Railways 1804 - English engineer Richard Trevithick improved James Watt’s steam engine and used it for transport. He built the first railway locomotive at an ironworks in Wales.

Steamboat 1807 -Robert Fulton put the steam engine on water. His steamboat that was eventually called the Clermont took 32 hours to go up the Hudson River from New York City to Albany. Sailing ships took four days.

1876: Internal-combustion engine - German engineer Nikolaus Otto built an engine that, unlike the steam engine, used the burning of fuel inside the engine to move a piston. This type of engine would later be used to power automobiles.

1879: Electric light -After thousands of trials, American inventor Thomas Edison got a carbon-filament light bulb to burn for 13½ hours. Edison and others in his laboratory were also working on an electrical power distribution system to light homes and businesses, and in 1882 the Edison Electric Illuminating Company opened the first power plant.

Floppy disk- 1970 David Noble at IBM invents the floppy disk

Atari - First video game "Pong" 1971 Nolan Bushnell