Subject Science, Technology, and Society neanderthalensis (600,000 to 30,000 years ago), as well as by our own species,

H. sapiens (which may be 200,000 years old). Other stone tools from this
Discuss the interactions between S&T and society throughout history period included awls or needles as well as burins (engraving tools)
Specific
The New Stone Age, or Neolithic, occupies a much shorter time than the Old
Learning
Discuss how scientific and technological developments affect society and the Stone Age. Various criteria produce different starting dates for the Neolithic,
Outcomes
environment but in terms of the kinds of stone tools manufactured, such as ground stone axe
or adze heads and small points called microliths, the period began as early
Week 1 to 3 as20,000 years ago in Europe and ended when metal came into common use,
Lecture 1 to 3 about 5,000 years ago. In other regions, Neolithic technology persisted much
later, with some stone tools, such as arrowheads, still in use in the 20th century
Content GENERAL CONCEPTS AND STS HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENTS in a few societies

Knowledge among hunter-gatherers

Historical antecedents in which social considerations changed the course of The great apes live primarily by foraging, rather than gathering –– the
Sub-Content difference being that a gatherer brings food picked up in various places back
science and technology
to a central location for consumption or storage whereas a forager eats the food
on site. There is no reason to suppose that the earliest hominids were gatherers,
The Stone Ages but there is some evidence that H. habilis and H. rudolfensis occupied certain
Stone tools have long been the first recognized technology. It is almost certain sites, called living floors by paleoanthropologists (scientists who study early
that wooden tools preceded stone by millions of years, but wood survives only hominids, including early H. sapiens). Thus, we believe that these early
in exceptional circumstances. It is customary to think that those tools were hominids had a lifestyle that is called hunting and gathering, an economy that
made by one of our direct ancestors, perhaps Homo habilis or Homo persists today in a few isolated societies. The hunting part is some-times
rudolfensis 2,500,000 years ago. Despite this common assumption, some questioned. Many anthropologists think that H. Habilis was largely a scavenger
evidence suggests that the first stone tools were made by those early relatives of meat as well as a gatherer of berries, nuts, and roots.
not on the direct line to modern humans, the australopithecines. The early tools These early hunter-gatherers or scavenger-gatherers are thought to have had
associated with Homo habilis and Homo rudolfensis were simple broken skills not much better than those of animals: recognition of the plants that could
pebbles. The next technology we know of came after different species be eaten and where to find them; the ability to make simple tools for digging
emerged, H. ergaster and H. erectus (1,800,000 years ago). These African and roots or scraping meat off bone; and perhaps the wherewithal to manufacture
Science and Asian humans greatly improved stone tools by flaking pieces off a core, snares for small game. Modern hunter-gatherers know a great deal about
Technology creating distinctive shapes with only a single cutting edge that we call hand everything in the territory they cover, but that does not mean that the much
before axes (or bifaces) and scrapers or chop-pers. The hammer stone used to work smaller brained H. Habilis and H.rudolfensis were as sophisticated.
Scientists: the other tools could be thought of as the first “machine tool.” hunting became increasingly important to H. ergaster and H. erectus. They
through 599 Today we are so accustomed to the idea of a time called the Stone Age that it certainly learned the ways of their prey animals. These people discovered how
BCE is easy to forget that the expression was coined less than two centuries ago by to control fire and began to build substantial structures with wood posts,
Christian Jurgensen Thomsen for a project started in 1816. He divided early although some lived in caves and rock shelters.
artifacts for a museum collection into stone, bronze, and iron. The museum The later hunter-gatherers, such as H. neanderthalensis (the Neandertals) and
catalog, published in 1836, enshrined the Stone, Bronze, and Iron ages. In1865 H. sapiens, progressed in several areas of technology and science while still
Sir John Lubbock further subdivided the Stone Age into the Old Stone Age and maintaining a hunter-gatherer lifestyle. Hunting weapons, such as the sling, the
the New Stone Age. After these simple names were translated into the Greek- bow, the bolo, the fish hook, and the spear thrower, are among the
derived technical terms Paleolithic and Neolithic, a middle stone age, the technological innovations of this period. The progress in technology is most
Mesolithic was added. clearly seen in the further refinement of stone tools and in the Neolithic use of
The hand axe and scraper set of tools, or toolkit or industry, continued for more many other materials. Metal tools were preceded by bone tools, such as
than a million years before a different stone tool emerged. Various types of needles, that could not have been easily made from stone. Although remains of
points, often considered to be spearheads, knives, arrowheads, or teeth (such more perishable tools are scarce in the archaeological record, there is no doubt
as saws’ teeth) were devised. They became parts of different toolkits used by that similar progress was being made in tools based on wood or other organic
different societies of later species, such as H. heidelbergensis and H.
materials. Although most early wooden tools have vanished, some of these It is hard to find any evidence of the physical sciences around the time of the
inventions can be seen in early drawings or engravings. Agricultural Revolution except for that dictated by developing technology,
There is also some evidence that mathematics and astronomy, subjects that such as the introduction of sun-dried bricks and mortar. Major developments
have been linked throughout most of history, were in use by hunter-gatherers. of the period following the Agricultural Revolution were largely in astronomy,
Notches on artifacts have been interpreted as tally marks or counters, as mathematics, and technology.
calendars, and as records of the lunar cycle. A significant advance toward the end of the Agricultural Revolution, however,
Other evidence of astronomy is less certain. Various early structures have been was the use of metal instead of stone for tools. Copper was the first metal to be
theorized to be observatories, but most of these interpretations are employed and it was in use from as early as 6400bce, initiating a period
controversial. It seems likely that primitive hunter-gatherers had already sometimes called the Copper Age. The word “age” in this context is
detected patterns in the apparent motions of the stars and possibly even in the misleading, although it goes back to Thomsen’s classification system of Stone,
real motions of the planets through the night sky Bronze, and Iron ages. Thomsen’s Stone Age covered hundreds of thousands
Hunter-gatherers living today have an extensive knowledge of wild animals of years (and has since been extended to more than 2,000,000 years), but the
and plants; there is no reason to expect that this was not also true of Neolithic Bronze Age, like the Copper Age, lasted only a few thousand years in all.
hunter-gatherers. Botanical taxonomy was undoubtedly accurate, for if it were Bronze ruled in Eurasia from about 3000bceto 1500bce, when iron weapons
not, people would not have known which plants were good for food. It is also began to replace those of bronze. Thomsen’s Iron Age could be said to be
likely that knowledge of plants whose chemical properties are useful as coming to a close about the time that he described his classification system (the
poisons, dyes, or medicines had its beginnings during the hunter-gatherer Bessemer process for steel making began 20 years after publication of
period. Thomsen’s catalog).Although the period from about 6000 BCE to about
Since our ancestors expanded rapidly, such knowledge had to be adjusted for 1000bceis thought of in terms of the three metal ages, it would be equally
it to be practical worldwide. H. habilis and H. ergaster were confined to Africa; appropriate to call this the Ceramics Age, since pottery and other ceramics,
however, H. erectus spread through Asia and H. Neanderthalensis through along with glass, were dominant. For the average person during most of this
Europe. Around 50,000 to 46,000 years ago, H. sapiens reached Australia. A time, ceramics were far more important than copper, bronze, or iron, which
few tens of thousand years later, H. sapiens reached the Americas. Each mostly were used by soldiers and specialized technicians, such as carpenters
expansion must have presented the explorers with many taxonomic puzzles: Is and masons.
this plant that looks like a lentil really a kind of lentil, or is it some poisonous Thus, one could speak of the Agricultural Revolution, the Metals Revolution,
or worthless plant? This led to a steadily expanding grasp of the beginnings of or the Ceramics Revolution. From other points of view, the same general time
biology. period encompassed the Wheel Revolution, giving us the potter’s wheel, the
wheeled vehicle, and wheels in various devices. In fact, this was also the time
The agricultural revolutions of another great advance in transportation –– the sail, our first power source
Starting about 10,000 years ago, or near8000bce, people made the major that did not depend on biological input –– but the great days of sailing ships
technological advance of domesticating animals and plants The early part of were still to come. Finally, this period saw the “dawn of history,” for writing
this Agricultural Revolution, especially in the Middle East, is often called the was developed.
Neolithic Revolution. Similar agricultural revolutions occurred independently
in the Middle East, the Orient, New Guinea, and the Americas. At one time, Civilizations
historians assumed that the Agricultural Revolution was simply a form of Following the Agricultural Revolution, societies that we recognize as
progress. This interpretation is now in dispute. Historians currently civilizations began to arise. People entered this period as either simple farmers
hypothesize that people knew how to raise crops and keep animals before the or (in some ways more complicated) hunter-gatherers. Although the vast
Agricultural Revolution, but were reluctant to do so until either rising majority of humans continued to be farmers or hunter-gatherers or both, after
population or reduced natural food supplies forced them into agriculture. This civilization started, a significant minority became full-time warriors, traders,
is partly supported by a rise in population preceding the adoption of agriculture, merchants, manufacturers, accountants, builders, or rulers. It is thought that the
as indicated in the archaeological record. need to maintain stability after the annual flood contributed to a strong central
Another belief that has largely been discarded is that urban life began as a result state in Egypt, while centralized control of irrigation projects was the stimulus
of the Agricultural Revolution. Towns were forming before farming became a in Mesopotamia. Less is known about the origins of the other early
way of life. The principal purpose of pre agricultural settlements was trade. civilizations: the Indus culture, centered at Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro in the
Towns arose at the juncture of trade routes or near supplies of goods that could Punjab region of India, and the early Chinese empire. All were flourishing by
be traded. Jericho, for example, was founded well before agriculture started. about 3000 BCE. Our understanding of these cultures has been influenced by
the way we have become aware of them. Egypt, for example, was well known building of monuments. It is hard to picture large numbers of people digging
to the Greeks; furthermore, archaeology began thereunder Napoleon and we or moving large rocks without some central direction.
have known how to read hieroglyphics since the work of Jean Champollion The process of forming kingdoms and empires involves warfare in nearly all
and Thomas Young in 1822. For these reasons, Egyptian culture is well cases. Thus, military technology is often at the forefront of change. War
understood. Many of the Mesopotamian civilizations were somewhat familiar chariots preceded carts used for hauling goods by hundreds of years. Copper,
from the Bible’s Old Testament, but the ability to read cuneiform and the first bronze, and iron were employed in battle axes and arrowheads well before they
excavations in Mesopotamia date back to the1840s. Civilizations in the became common as the tips of plows or in needles.
Americas were unknown to the Western world until after the 15th century and
not studied systematically until the 19th century. African civilizations, whose
ruins were observed in the 19th century, were generally misinterpreted as Philosophy, a precursor to science
colonies from Egypt or Arabia until recently. Even more dramatically, the Greek science and mathematics begins with the Ionian school of natural
ancient civilization of the Indus River (Pakistan) was not discovered at all until philosophy shortly after 600BCE, so called because it originated in Miletus, a
the 1920s. Although Europeans knew of Chinese civilization at the time of the city-state on the coast of what is now Turkey, then a Greek region called Ionia.
Roman Empire, contact with China was lost during the Middle Ages. Thales of Miletus is regarded as the founder of the Ionian school. He probably
Realization of the early Chinese civilization was a slow process that began studied in Egypt, where he was exposed to new ideas. It is likely that there he
about 1930; to some extent it is still continuing. learned the craft of land surveying, from which he deduced geometry. In
Scholars influenced principally by Mesopotamia and Egypt have defined a Mesopotamia he studied astronomy, and it is believed that he predicted a solar
civilization as a society that includes towns of at least 5000 people, a written eclipse. Thales began the searched for a unifying principle or essence
language, and monumental religious works produced in service of a state underlying all phenomena and identified this essence as water.
religion. Yet various civilized societies that we recognize today may fail in Anaximander was a pupil of Thales. He is believed to have written the earliest
anyone of these criteria. It is not clear that the Maya had towns that the Incas scientific book, now lost. Anaximander formulated a theory of the origin and
or Aztecs had a true written language, or that Chinese monuments were evolution of life. He believed that life originated in the sea from the “moist
religious. A different definition of civilization (owed to Robert McAdams element,” which was evaporated by the Sun. The presence of shells and marine
in1960) is that a civilized people are divided into classes, society is organized fossils was for him the proof that the sea covered much of Earth’s surface. He
by the state, and labor is specialized into different trades or professions postulated that humans must have originated in the sea and have originally
Science and
Civilization does not seem to have arisen in any one place, although Sumer can resembled fish. Anaximenes continued the search for a basic principle, which
Technology in
lay claim to being the first as far as we know today. The Egyptian civilization as his ideas passed through several philosophers gradually came to be the four
Antiquity: 600
that began only a few hundred years later and only a few hundred miles away elements of fire, air, earth, and water (with Aristotle adding a fifth element,
BCE through
seems to have come from different sources and to have evolved along its own quintessence, for the heavens). This search was the earliest version of the quest
529 CE
lines. And certainly the civilizations of the Far East and the Americas are based for a Theory of Everything, which continues to be an important part of
on a different technology from either of those of the Middle East. theoretical physics today. One difference is that today’s proposals for a Theory
Despite differences in technology or society, all civilizations seem to have of Everything are not accepted by other scientists until they can be established
arisen politically from similar roots. Villages acquire rulers. Eventually one of by predicting correct and measurable results.
those rulers sets out successfully to rule over the ethnically similar villages in Ionian philosophers and their followers, therefore, introduced the earliest form
a larger region, effectively becoming a king, whatever the ruler may be called. of scientific method, which was based on reasoning and observation with very
By a similar process, one of the kings extends sway over a larger region, now little experimentation. They developed differing theories about the causes of
encompassing ethnically dissimilar peoples, resulting in an empire. The empire natural phenomena and the nature of matter. The atomists, such as Leucippus
lasts for a time and then disintegrates under pressure from outside or as a result and Democritus, believed reality to be embodied in matter, while the
of bad management, often both. This general pattern has some direct effects on Pythagoreans viewed the universe as form and number. Our knowledge of such
the type of technology possible. Kings and emperors can order large numbers theories is fragmentary and often available only from material written hundreds
of people to work together on projects. Even without advances in tools or of years after the original ideas. In many instances the only source is someone
materials, construction projects–– pyramids, temples, canals, roads, and so writing in opposition to the original idea, almost guaranteeing a simplistic and
forth –– can be accomplished that would be difficult without unified control. distorted view of it.
Where we observe the construction of large projects without the obvious Two teachers, Plato, heavily influenced by the Pythagoreans, and Aristotle,
presence of kings, we suspect that either the kings were present and failed to who relied more on observation, became central to Greek science. Both led
leave a record or that religious leaders were able to command laborers for the schools in Athens more than 200years after Thales. Plato’s Academy promoted
a pure form of mathematics. Aristotle, whose school was the Lyceum, became Mesoamerica, and the coast of Peru. In Mesoamerica, civilizations that
the most important scholar in Greek Antiquity. He introduced the inductive descended from the Olmec of eastern Mexico flowered with the Maya of
method, a version of the scientific method that still plays a role in scientific Central America. Both Chinese and Maya societies developed sophisticated
thinking today. This method consists of deducing general principles from mathematics, including the concept of place value, and had a strong tradition
observations of phenomena and then using these general principles to explain of observational astronomy. Chinese astronomers began to compile star maps
other observations. 400 years before the first Hellenistic versions, but they did not develop a
complete theoretical basis for astronomy as the Greek astronomers did. The
The Hellenistic world and the Roman Empire Peruvian coastal cities excelled in crafts and monumental construction, but did
Greek colonies were planted around the Mediterranean Sea, and many who not develop writing
were not Greek themselves turned to the Greek language and adopted Greek Chinese technology surpassed the Romans in agriculture, materials, and
ways. This larger Greek culture is called Hellenistic after the Greek word for invention. In agriculture the methods used for harnessing animals, rotating
their own people (as opposed to others, called barbarians). Alexander the crops, and eliminating pests with chemicals or biological controls were
Great, a Hellenic Macedonian tutored by Aristotle, conquered the world from introduced. Chinese canals linked their empire, and the Great Wall remains an
Greece to India in the fourth century BCE. The spread of Hellenic culture and example of the magnitude of Chinese construction. The first form of paper was
science was one result. Hellenism became particularly strong in Egypt, invented in China before the start of the Roman Empire. The Chinese
especially in Alexandria. developed cast iron and built iron bridges and other structures. Porcelain was
The center of Greek culture moved to Alexandria after Roman rule became among other Chinese materials unknown in the West. The inventions of the
predominant with the occupation of Greece in 146BCE. Most of the later Greek compass and ship’s rudder revolutionized navigation. On a more domestic
scientists and mathematicians of this period lived or at least studied in note, the Chinese introduced both the wheelbarrow and umbrella. Near the end
Alexandria, including Euclid, Archimedes, Ptolemy, and Eratosthenes. of Antiquity, Chinese culture was introduced to Japan.
After the third century CE, Hellenistic science went into decline. The rise of In North America the Mound Builders flourished in what is now the Midwest
the Christian Church, which associated science with heathenism, amplified this and Southeast of the United States, while in the Southwest the Anasazi began
process –– the largest library at the time, the Library of the Temple of Serapis to build giant apartment complexes in canyons. These civilizations, while not
in Alexandria, was destroyed in390CE, and the Alexandrian mathematician as advanced in some ways as those of Mesoamerica, shared many of the same
Hypatia was murdered for her “pagan” ideas in 415CE. traits and technology. The mounds of the Mound Builders resemble the temple-
The Roman Empire is notorious for its limited number of advances over such platform pyramids of Mesoamerica, for example, and all used the same
a long period of time, especially when compared with Greek and Hellenistic domestic plants and animals.
science. Indeed, there was almost no Roman science as such. It should be kept In the South Pacific, the Polynesians were able to navigate great distances
in mind, however, that many Hellenistic advances occurred under Roman rule. between islands. Their basic culture failed to progress much beyond designing
When it comes to technology in Europe it can be argued that more happened and building their outrigger canoes, perhaps because life on the islands was too
in the half-millennium after the fall of the Roman Empire than during the half- easy to present many challenges. The Polynesian-based culture of Easter
millennium that the Empire existed. One important mechanical advance was Island, with its mysterious statues and inscriptions, did not really get started
the development of gears. until after this period.

Other cultures of the period

At the beginning of this period, Egypt and Babylon were still powerful and Reading Assignment 2:
Output
centers of intellectual life. Most of the early Greek philosophers are thought to “If Science requires Scientific Method? Can we consider previous bodies of
required
have studied in either Egypt or Mesopotamia –– some perhaps even as far away knowledge of science as non-science?”
as India. Both Egypt and Mesopotamia embraced Greek culture after the
conquest by Alexandria. University Physics by Young and Freedman
Although the main thread of Western civilization runs through Greece and References https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AxwzTeThMYcLJmCnGoOK6X7TnmjDEy-
Rome, there were contemporaneous advances in other parts of the world. Early E/
in the period, before Alexander’s empire, the Persian Empire had the resources
to build some remarkable canals and bridges, but it’s most useful invention was
a bow made from horn that was more practical than the wooden bow. Four
regions that produced essentially separate civilizations were China, India,