Page 30 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol V

technology—overview 1807

Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-
nine percent perspiration. • Thomas Edison
(1847–1931)

ers, and blades. Beginning 70,000 years ago, humans their population grew, however, they could no longer
made clothing, houses, and oil lamps, as well as cave return to their old lifestyle.
paintings, musical instruments, and decorative jewelry.
With their advanced hunting and gathering equipment Hydraulic Civilizations
and skills, they migrated to previously uninhabited areas, (3500–1500 BCE)
such as Siberia and the Americas.They had boats of some As agriculture spread, people who lived on the banks of
sort, for they crossed miles of open sea to reach New rivers, especially in hot dry regions, found that they
Guinea and Australia.They moved frequently in search of could obtain phenomenal yields by watering their crops.
game and plant foods. Some 30,000 years ago, humans To irrigate away from the riverbanks meant digging
learned to sew clothing, using bone needles and sinew as canals and constructing dikes. In the lower valley of the
thread, which allowed them to survive in formerly unin- Tigris and Euphrates rivers in Mesopotamia (now Iraq)
habitable areas of the world like Siberia. Then, after the Sumerians (who arrived in the region between 4000
10,000 BCE, hunters began using bows and arrows to kill and 3500 BCE) organized large numbers of workers to
elusive and fast-moving game like deer and gazelles. carry out these public works projects. They used well-
Permanent settlements coincide with the development sweeps (a bucket at the end of a counterbalanced pole) to
of agriculture. Starting some 12,000 years ago, people in lift water from the canals to their fields. By the mid-fourth
the Middle East began to harvest wild wheat and barley, millennium BCE, the resulting food surpluses allowed
and to help these plants grow by sowing seeds and clear- their leaders to build cities, create governments and laws,
ing away weeds.To chop down trees, they made smooth- and employ artisans, bureaucrats, soldiers, and mer-
sided stone axes. By storing grains from one harvest to chants. In Mesopotamia, cities built ziggurats, multistory
the next, they were able to stay in one place and build temples made of sun-dried bricks. In Egypt and Mexico,
permanent houses; the first known settlement was Jeri- rulers recruited farmers during the off-season to build pyr-
cho, founded c. 7350 BCE. They also domesticated ani- amids and temples. The people of Peru built cities with
mals: first dogs, then sheep and goats, then pigs, great walls of massive stones that fit together perfectly.
donkeys, and cattle. Agriculture developed in China and The same social revolution occurred in Egypt in the late
Southeast Asia in the ninth millennium BCE, in Europe fourth millennium, for the same reasons. Every year, the
from the seventh millennium, in West Africa from the Nile River flooded the valley.To retain the water, farmers
fourth, and in Mexico from the second millennium on. In built dikes to enclose basins; once the soil was thoroughly
the Americas, the process started later and took longer soaked, the water was released to the next basin down-
because there were fewer wild plants and animals that stream. All of this required massive amounts of labor.
could be domesticated: corn, beans, and squash were the Irrigation and water control were the key technologies
primary domesticated plants, and dogs, turkeys, guinea of several other early civilizations. In northern China, civ-
pigs, and llamas the primary domesticated animals. ilization grew out of the need to protect the land from the
Other tools and skills that made possible agriculture and dangerous floods of the Yellow River. In the Valley of
animal husbandry included digging sticks and hoes to Mexico (central Mexico), farmers built raised fields called
prepare the ground, sickles to harvest grains, baskets and chinampas in shallows lakes by digging canals and heap-
bins to hold crops, and fences to keep animals. ing the rich mud on their plots. On the coastal plains of
The shift to agriculture and animal husbandry took Peru, among the driest environments on earth, farmers
two thousand years, during which time people continued used the rivers that came down off the Andes to irrigate
to hunt and gather wild foods. By growing and raising their fields.
food, far more people could survive in a given area than Early civilizations also developed other technologies.
was possible if they relied on the bounty of nature. Once Women spun thread and wove cloth, some of exquisite