NATS 1780 - Technology and Civilization, - Lecture 2 -
2 million years ago, stone tools, 1.5M, fire
12000 years ago, “agricultural revolution”, crops and animal herding
Tools for seeding, weeding and harvesting, weapons for hunting
Revolution occurred independently in different areas, different
crops: wheat, rice, corn and potatoes
- Crops were domesticated through selective breeding, e.g. wheat
Early Old-World Hydraulic Civilizations
- Urban revolution, 6000 years ago
- Traditional explanation: Irrigation agriculture and fertilization
created agricultural surplus and population increase
- Surplus managed by a centralized government, taxation, led to:
 Armies, police, tax collectors, writing, trades, priestly class,
mathematics (surveying, calculating taxes, managing surplus)
 Mathematics and compound interest, geometry, Sumerian and
Babylonian base 60 (sexigesimal) number system
 State supported anatomy, herbology and surgery
 Education for literacy and numeracy, advantages
 Astronomy and agriculture
 Calendars to date transactions
 Astrology for prediction of the future
 Slavery and corvee labor
Irrigation Agriculture
- Hydraulic engineering: canals, dams, reservoirs, ditches, land
drainage, artificial lakes
- Runoff and flood management, large, centralized bureaucracies
- Stratification, administrative and worker class
- Independent hydrological kingdoms: 3500 BC, Mesopotamia, 3400
BC, Egypt, 2500 BC, Indus River Valley, 1800 BC, Yellow River,
600 BC Ionia, Greece (Hellenic), 500 BC, MesoAmerica, 300 BC,
South America, 300 BC, Greece (Hellenistic)
- Mesopotamian cities, 50,000-200,000 people
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Canals, centralized agriculture, 2000 BC chariots, horses and oxen
Writing, mathematics and astronomy
Egyptian society, flooding of Nile, engineering projects: pyramids
Bureaucracy, mathematics, writing, astronomy, crafts
Indian civilization, Indus flood plain
Metallurgy, bureaucracy and several large city states
Trade, Crafts and Architecture
- Bronze (copper + tin), rise of civilization, “bronze age”
- 1100 C furnaces, mining, smelting, hammering and casting, jewelry,
primitive electroplating, metal currency
- Specialized labor and production of goods, craft traditions
- Large engineering projects and off season work
- Pyramid labor as a form of, “Institutional muscle flexing by the
early Egyptian state, somewhat akin to the arms industry today”
- The Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the Great Pyramid of Giza, the
Great Wall of China, the Grand Canal
- Agrarian societies change or progress at a slower rate
Agriculture and Technological Determinism
- Karl Wittfogel, hydraulic determinism: centralized control of water
regimes using hydraulic engineering leads to autocratic government
- Influence of cultural concepts (property rights and kin relations)
- Medieval Dutch case, possible exception
- Other factors in agricultural surplus: population density
New World Civilizations
- Olmec society, from 1150-600 BC, hieroglyphic writing, large stone
artifacts, buried dead, developed calendar
- Progress of the seasons, planting, weeding and harvesting
- Monte Alban, astronomically oriented, temples, Oaxaca Valley
- Teotihuacan, population 200,000, AD 300-700
- 200 foot high 35 million cubic feet Temple of the Sun
- 600 pyramids, apartment complexes, centralized bureaucracy
- Mayan civilization (100 BC - 9th century AD), wet lowlands
- Hydrological engineering, drainage
Greece and Rome
- Archimedes: lever, wedge, screw, pulley, weight analysis
- Hero of Alexandria (60BC) pneumatics and mechanics
- State sponsored technologies in ancient Greece: catapults, large
rowed warships, ballistic missiles
- Western Roman Empire (1 AD to 476AD), Eastern Empire,
Constantinople AD 1453
- Roman Empire stretched to England, Hadrian’s Wall, technologies:
 Army legions, armor, shields, swords and archery, warships
 Roads and aqueducts, cement, coliseums for gladiatorial battles
 Engineering books (e.g. Vitruvius, 35-103)
Part II – Technology in the Ancient World
- Consequences of ancient technological development:
 Transportation and the urban environment
 Technological infrastructure
 Unintended consequences of technological development
 Resistance to technology transfer
- Heilbroner’s thesis: that economic factors direct technological
development in a systematic way
The Camel and the Oxcart:
 300AD, camels 20% cheaper transport than oxcart
 No wheeled transport in Middle East until 19th century
 Unintended consequences of the decision to adopt camels: urban
development, reduced transport infrastructure, vehicle related
crafts (carriage and cart, and later train, bike and automobile)
Technology Transfer
- Why were certain technologies accepted and others rejected?
- Traditional assumption: technologies local, not known
 Methods of communication, overland trade routes to
Mediterranean, Northern Africa, India and China
 Technologies known in many areas but not transferred
Printing in the Ancient World
 Block printing [tarsh], Middle East 9th – 14th century
 Korean, Chinese and Japanese block printing in 8th century
 4th century AD, Chinese paper rubbings, 7th century, wood
block printing of whole pages
 Printing with tarsh done for illiterate lower classes
 Chinese glazing and paper making but not printing
adopted by upper classes
 Block printing came to Europe in the 14th century(Italian
playing cards, tarocco)
 Movable type, 15th century Europe
 Religious, professional and cultural objections to printing
Domesticated Animals
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Ox, horse & camel collars, Europe adopts Chinese horse collar
Berbers of North Africa developed horse and camel collar
Resistance to a “barbarian” technology by the Roman Empire
Camels domesticated since the 4th century BC in central Asian
locations, not generally adopted until Roman period
- Nomadic vs urban, Arabic desert trade, social status, military power
- Camels always cheaper, “social filters” had to be overcome
Technology Transfer and Social Filters
- Social factors (class, politics, religion, professionalization, and
social status) influenced degree and scope of technological diffusion
- Economic factors not the only important factors technology analysis
- Decisions about technology have unintended consequences
- Technologies are not always adopted due to a “need”, social filters