2.5 million - 1.5 million years BC e.

The basis of human formation is labor. Hands free from locomotor functions could use objects found in natural conditions - in nature - as tools. Although the use of a number of objects as means of labor is characteristic in embryonic form of some species of animals, a specific feature of man is that he not only uses found objects as tools, but creates these tools himself. Along with the development of the brain and vision, this characteristic feature of man creates the basic prerequisites for the formation of the human labor process and the development of technology.

Technical progress and the culture of mankind are now manifested not in randomly made primitive tools, but in the target orientation in their manufacture, in the similarity of examples of their processing, in the preservation or improvement of their forms, which presupposes knowledge of the characteristics of the raw materials and processed material and the experience accumulated over a certain time and skills passed on to future generations. All this had a huge impact on the development of the brain. Apparently, Australopithecus began to purposefully process wood and other materials.

The oldest primitive stone tools made from pebbles, made from similar patterns and processed in a similar way, were found with the remains of fossil hominids. The creator of these tools is considered to be a “skilled man” - homo habilis. By hunting animals they obtained not only food, but also skins, bones, tusks and horns of animals, which were used to make various tools. Long animal bones and antlers were used as tools without further processing. Sometimes they were only broken and split.

2.5 million – 600 thousand years BC e.

One of the prerequisites for labor and the production of standardized tools was the emergence and development of primitive speech. The results of modern research do not provide any basis for determining when speech arose. Apparently, a person of the modern type - homo sapiens, who appeared about 40-30 thousand years ago, had sufficiently developed speech organs.

For a very long period, until the advent of agriculture, people obtained their food in two ways - by collecting fruits, plants, gifts of nature and by hunting. Women and children collected fruits, seeds, roots, shellfish, eggs, insects, shells, and caught small animals. The men hunted large animals, caught fish and some types of birds. To hunt and catch animals, it was necessary to make tools. The division of labor between the sexes - between man and woman - is the first significant division of labor in the history of mankind, which, like the improvement and development of tools, is one of the most important conditions for the progress of civilization.

The production of tools from stone began - pebbles, granite, flint, slate, etc. These tools looked like a piece of stone, which, as a result of one or two chips, resulted in a sharper edge - a stone chopper. The cleaving technique was as follows: the manufacturer held the stone being processed in one hand, and in the other a boulder, which he used to hit the stone being processed. The resulting flakes were used as scrapes. Typically, the production of stone tools processed using the cleaving technique was carried out by older people. In some areas, this technique existed for almost 2 million years, that is, until the end of the Stone Age.

Production activity during this period was made possible, despite the limited technical means, thanks to collective labor, which was facilitated by the emergence of speech. The most important role in the struggle for existence was played by the purposeful social relations of people, their courage and determination to survive the struggle against animals that were many times stronger than humans.

600 – 150 thousand years BC e.

500 thousand years BC e. Sananthropus - Peking Man - appeared in China.

200 thousand years BC e. Homo sapiens appeared in China.

The most important invention of this period was the creation of a new universal tool - a hand ax. In the beginning, hand axes were made using the chopping technique. One end was cut off on both sides, sharpening it. The opposite end of the pebble was left untreated, which made it possible to hold it in the palm of your hand. The result was a wedge-shaped weapon, with uneven zigzag edges and a pointed end. Then the working part of the weapon began to be corrected with two or three more chips, and sometimes the correction was done using a softer material, such as bone.

At the same time, along with the universal hand ax, several types of flakes appeared, which were obtained by splitting stones. These were thin flakes, flakes with sharp edges, short thick flakes. The cleaving technique spread during the Lower Paleolithic period (100 thousand - 40 thousand years BC). At sites inhabited by synanthropes, for example, in rock caves near Beijing, the remains of fires were found along with stone tools.

The use of fire is one of the most important stages in the development of mankind. The acquisition and use of fire made it possible to expand the possibilities of human settlement and existence, and created opportunities for the diversity of human nutrition and food preparation. Fire provided new ways of defense against predators. And nowadays fire is the basis for many branches of technology. In ancient times, people made fire only as a result of natural phenomena - from fires, lightning, etc. The fire was kept in fire pits and constantly maintained.

Long wooden spears with burnt hard tips appear. The hunters who invented such spears also used hand axes when hunting animals.

150 – 40 thousand years BC e.

Neanderthals, and perhaps also some other ancestors of the human race, mastered the art of making fire during the Upper Paleolithic period. It is difficult to accurately determine the date of this great invention, which determined the further development of human history.

Initially, fire was obtained by rubbing wooden objects, but soon fire began to be obtained by carving, when a spark appeared when a stone hit a stone. There are other opinions regarding the original methods of making fire - at first fire was obtained by carving, and later by friction. In a later period, a bow-type device was used to make fire by friction. Having learned to make fire, man began to consume boiled meat, which affected his biological development. However, the fire could not save the person from the onset of cold weather. To survive, people began to build houses.

At this time, changes occurred in the methods and techniques of processing stone tools. They began to be made from flakes obtained by chipping from a stone nodule - a core (nucleus). The flint core was pre-processed. Round chips were used to give it a certain shape, the surface was leveled with smaller chips, after which plates were chipped from the core, from which points and scrapers were made. The blades were more elongated than the flakes, shaped and of a thinner cross-section; one side of the plate after chopping was smooth, and the other side was subjected to additional processing - finer beating.

Axes, chisels, drills and thin knife-shaped plates were made from stone cores. Animals were caught using specially dug holes. The organization of the team improves when expanding pasture farming and when hunting animals. As a rule, the hunt was of a driven-raid nature.

For dwellings, caves, rock terraces, primitive dugouts and buildings were used, the foundations of which went deep into the ground. Neanderthals conquered quite wide areas. Their traces were found in the North, in particular in the West Siberian Lowland, in Transbaikalia, and in the valley of the middle Lena. This became possible after man learned to make and use fire. At this time, natural conditions also change, affecting a person’s lifestyle. For a long time, until the advent of metals, tools were made mainly of stone, hence the names Old Stone Age (Paleolithic), Middle Stone Age (Mesolithic) and New Stone Age (Neolithic). The Paleolithic, in turn, is divided into lower (early) and upper (late). After the Ice Age, a new geological era begins - the Holocene. The climate is getting warmer.

The development of cold regions involves new changes in human clothing. It began to be made from the skins of killed animals. Already during the Lower Paleolithic period, many tools were made from the bones and horns of animals, the processing of which became more advanced. Objects made from bones were twisted, cut, hewn, split, and polished.

40 thousand - 12 thousand years BC e.

The formation of the modern type of man has ended. His remains are found along with objects and tools that indicate the emergence of technology during the Lower Paleolithic period. Human settlements are spreading over a large area of ​​the globe. This became possible thanks to the improvement of his experience, knowledge, and the development of technology, which allowed man to adapt to different climatic conditions.

Stone plates and blades made using percussion technology appear. Thin-section plates were subjected to secondary processing using bone tools - retouchers. Retouchers are tools for touching up other tools and are the first tools in history to create other tools.

Various types of anvils were used as cores when retouching items. Universal axes are being replaced by specialized tools that were made using the chopping technique. In this case, narrow plates are cut off from the small core - blanks, which are subsequently subjected to secondary processing.

Primitive stone skins, axes, chisels, saws, scrapers, cutters, drills and many other tools are made. In the Paleolithic and especially in the Neolithic, the technique of drilling using stone drills originated and developed. At first, they simply scraped out the holes. Then they began to tie the stone drill to the shaft and rotate it with both hands. Inserted tools appeared: stone or flint plates were connected to a wooden or bone handle. With the help of improved tools, the production of wooden, bone and horn objects and tools is significantly expanding: awls, needles with holes, fishing rods, shovels, harpoons, etc. In Georgia, in the paleolithic cave of Sagvardzhile, Turitella shells were found, which served as decoration and had holes obtained by sawing and scratching. On the islands of Melanesia, primitive tribes, in order to make a hole, first heated a flat stone, and then dropped drops of cold water into the same place from time to time, thereby causing microscopic chips, which, as a result of repeated repetition, led to the formation of a depression and even a hole.

In France, in Aurignac, the first bone needles were found at sites of the Upper Paleolithic period. Their age is attributed to approximately 28–24 millennium BC. e. They easily pierced skins, and instead of threads, plant fibers or animal tendons were used.

They are beginning to use improved insert drills, which were used to modify the gun. For example, insert tools were clamped and rotated between the palms. Then they began to use bow drilling (the bow string was wrapped around the shaft and the bow was moved away from you and towards you, with the other hand you held the shaft and pressed it against the workpiece), which turned out to be much more productive than manual drilling.

The technique of building dugouts is being improved, hut-type dwellings are being built, the bases of which go deep into the ground. The huts were reinforced with bones or fangs of large animals, which were also used to line the walls and ceilings. Huts with low clay walls and walls woven from branches and reinforced with poles or stakes appear. Liquid food products are heated and boiled in natural stone cavities, where hot stones are thrown for heating.

Clothing is made from animal skins. However, the leather is processed more carefully; individual skins are sewn together with animal tendons or thin leather straps. Leather processing technology is quite complex. The processing process is labor-intensive and includes chemical methods in which the skin is soaked in a salt solution, then the fat and juice of the bark of various types of trees are rubbed into the interior.

A man trains a dog to hunt an animal.

Sleighs were invented for land transportation of goods and for movement. By the end of this period, some types of raw materials are already transferred over long distances, for example, Armenian obsidian (volcanic glass), from which cutting and stabbing tools and other tools were made, is transported almost 400 km.

The first boats and rafts were made from a whole piece of wood for fishing. Fish are caught with fishing rods and harpoons, and nets appear.

Roofs made of brushwood are woven to cover the top of buildings. Making baskets is the beginning of the weaving technique.

Some archaeologists believe that the beginning of pottery was laid by the fact that woven baskets were coated with clay and then fired over a fire. Pottery and the production of ceramic products played a very important role in the history of technology, especially during the birth of metallurgy.

Examples of the beginning of ceramic production are clay figurines fired over fire.

Living in caves contributed to the emergence of lighting technology. The most ancient lamps were splinters, torches and primitive oil burners. From the Lower Paleolithic period, sandstone or granite bowls have been preserved, which were used as burners.

Along with household items, jewelry began to be made: beads made of coral and various teeth with holes in the middle, objects carved from bone and horns, and the first religious objects appeared. The first figurines of women, animals, ritual sculptures, and drawings, often beautifully executed, were found in the caves. Of interest is also the production of paints that have not changed their colors over tens of thousands of years.

During the Lower Paleolithic period, a new weapon was used to hunt animals and for self-defense - the spear thrower. The use of a spear thrower is an example of the use of leverage, which increases the speed and distance of a spear's flight.

The bow with a string, which hits a target at a great distance, is the pinnacle of invention at the end of this period. The bow as a weapon was successfully used for many millennia, right up to our era. Some researchers believe that the bow was invented approximately 12 thousand years ago, but arrowheads found during excavations indicate that they were made in an earlier period. The bow made it possible to successfully hunt animals, which, according to some scientists, led to the complete destruction of many species of animals and forced hunters to look for new opportunities for existence, that is, to switch to agriculture.

Fire is produced using a bow-type device.

Towards the end of the Lower Paleolithic period, the first mines were laid for the underground extraction of raw materials, primarily flint, slate, and later limestone, from which jewelry was made. In some areas, on the territory of the initial surface mining, holes are deepened, shafts are dug, adits are diverted from them, and stairs are built. This is how a new branch of production arises - mining. Raw materials were obtained by a primitive method of cutting down rock in mines and by chipping or sawing off layers of rock.

12 - 10 thousand BC e.

At the end of the Ice Age, as well as during the Holocene era, many species of large animals, such as the mammoth, musk ox, and woolly rhinoceros, became extinct. As a result, hunters began to specialize in catching a specific animal. Some groups of hunters hunt reindeer, others hunt gazelles, fallow deer, bezoar goats, etc. Herds of wild animals, near which hunters settled, represented a kind of natural reserve of food and meat. The proximity of settlements to natural pastures allowed hunters to catch wild animals and keep them near their homes. This is how the process of domestication of animals occurs, primarily sheep and goats. Gradually, conditions for the emergence of pasture farming are beginning to be created.

In the countries of Western Asia, the practice of regularly harvesting wild cereals - barley, oats, and einkorn wheat - is spreading. The grains were ground in special mortars. Manual stone grain grinders and grain graters appear.

10 – 8 thousand years BC e.

Beginning of the Neolithic period. Climatic conditions become similar to modern ones, glaciers are retreating. Natural conditions, especially in the mountainous regions of Western Asia, the southern part of North America, etc., are not conducive to the expansion of hunting, creating the preconditions for the emergence of agriculture. In Russia, in Siberia, an abrasive tool was found, consisting of two stone bars with conical grooves, intended for making bone needles, awls or arrowheads. A workpiece was placed between the bars in the groove. Then they began to rotate it and move it in a back-and-forth motion, gradually moving it deeper into the conical hole, squeezing both halves of the bars with their hands and adding water. As a result of using such a tool, exactly identical sharp and even needles or arrowheads appeared. An ancient bone needle with a small hole drilled in it was found.

9500 BC e.

In some regions of the globe, primarily in the countries of Western Asia, the foundations of agriculture are being formed, which represents an epochal phenomenon in the history of mankind.

As a result of inefficient farming, only a limited number of people could count on a constant supply of food. However, with the development of agriculture and cattle breeding, man began to produce more than was necessary for his own needs - to obtain a surplus product, which allowed some people to feed themselves at the expense of the labor of others. The excess product created the prerequisites for the separation of crafts into an independent branch of production, which, first of all, created the conditions for the emergence of cities and the development of civilization. The process of establishing agriculture lasted several millennia.

Agriculture made it possible to create and store grain reserves for a long time. This helps people gradually transition to a sedentary lifestyle, build permanent homes, public buildings, allows them to organize more efficient farming, and later carry out specialization and division of labor.

Single-grain wheat began to be cultivated primarily in southern Turkey, double-grain wheat in the valley of southern Jordan, and double-row barley in northern Iraq and western Iran. Lentils spread quickly in Palestine, later peas and other crops appeared there.

The crop fields were first cultivated with poles pointed at the ends. However, tools intended for cultivating the soil were known earlier, before the advent of agriculture.

Gradually, improved tools for harvesting and reaping appeared: knives, sickles, flails, hand grain grinders with a mortar.

Simultaneously with the emergence of agriculture, the domestication of wild animals began - goats, sheep, later cattle, pigs, etc. Instead of ineffective hunting and trapping of wild animals, productive forms of farming such as livestock breeding were created.

Cattle breeding provides humans with meat and other food products, as well as clothing, raw materials for making tools, etc. Later, domestic animals are used as draft power. The question of whether agriculture or cattle breeding arose first is debated. Agriculture and cattle breeding are closely related. The domestication of wild animals apparently began in northern Syria or Anatolia (Turkey).

During this period, insert tools spread, the base of which was made of wood or bone, and the working part was made of a set of small stone plates, called microliths. The plates were most often made from flint, obsidian or other minerals. Thus, various knives, sickle-shaped tools, cutters with a blunt back or beveled edge, axes, hammers, hoes and other tools are created. These tools were used not only by the first farmers, but also by the majority of hunters, who began to cultivate the land much later, in subsequent millennia.

With the invention and widespread introduction of insert tools, a technical revolution occurred. Flint knives, saws, and chisels were placed into a wooden or bone base and secured with bitumen. One of the first composite and complex insert weapons was the bow and arrow. By the time of the invention of the bow, people used various economic devices in their economic activities - spear throwers, traps, traps.

The invention of the bow could have been prompted by the use of various throwing devices: spears, planks for throwing darts, etc. A person observed how energy was accumulated when bending branches or young trees, and released when straightening. The most ancient simple bows were made from a single bent stick, the ends of which were tied together with a bowstring made from animal tendons. At one end of the bow the string was attached with a knot, at the other it was put on with a loop. Compared to a spear, the use of a bow and arrow made it possible to increase the speed and distance of the arrow several times. In addition, the bow, compared to other throwing weapons, had aiming quality.

The arrow was made of wood, and the tip was made of microliths. Such arrows were light and long-range. The sizes of the bows varied - from 60 cm to 2 m or more. The bow quickly found use among different tribes and peoples. The image of a simple bow is found on ancient Assyrian and Egyptian monuments. He was known to the Romans, Gauls, and Germans. The Greeks, Scythians, Sarmatians, Huns and some other peoples used a more effective complex bow, which was glued together from several parts, from different types of wood, horn or bone.

The use of bows and arrows significantly increased human productivity and greatly facilitated the life of hunting tribes. In addition, it freed up time for collecting edible plants, including cereals, taming wild animals, fishing, collecting snails and mollusks. This was important because hunting did not satisfy the need for food. The bow and arrow laid the foundation for the technical prerequisites for the transition from hunting to agriculture and cattle breeding.

Microliths were used for many tools, including knives and then sickles. Fundamentally new means of labor, which found various economic applications, created the necessary technical prerequisites for the transition from hunting to agriculture and cattle breeding, that is, to a producing economy.

Sedentary farmers begin to build large residential buildings. Houses are built from twigs and coated with clay. Walls are sometimes built from separate layers of wet clay; mud bricks appear, stone buildings are erected. In some settlements of Western Asia in the 10th - 9th millennium BC. e. Up to 200 people lived there. Clay ovens were laid inside the structure and granaries were built for storing grain. A matting appears. Lime plaster is invented, which is used to coat buildings.

8 thousand years BC e.

A fortified city with about 3 thousand inhabitants was built in Jericho. The houses, round in plan, were built of mud brick. The entire city was surrounded by a wall of rubble stone with massive towers eight meters in diameter and 8 meters high. The height of the fortress walls was 4.2 meters. The walls were made of stone squares 2? 2 meters weighing several tons each. In the 8th millennium BC. e. and in subsequent millennia there were other fortresses.

Raw materials become traded items and are transported over long distances. Obsidian from Anatolia (Turkey) is transported to cities located at distances of over 1000 km. Some sources indicate that Jericho owes its power and prosperity to the obsidian trade.

The production of household ceramics emerges. Special ceramic or pottery kilns are built for firing clay objects and dishes.

8 – 6 thousand BC e.

The Neolithic, New Stone Age received its name due to the widespread introduction of new methods of processing large stone tools. Thus, a new method of processing stone tools by grinding, drilling and sawing appears. First, the workpiece is made, then the workpiece is ground. These techniques made it possible to move on to processing new, harder types of stone: basalt, jade, jadeite and others, which began to serve as the raw material for creating stone axes, hoes, chisels, picks. Various tools for working wood, mainly pointed axes, chisels and other tools, were embedded in a wooden base.

During processing, tools are cut and sawed with stone saws without teeth. Quartz sand served as an abrasive. Dry and wet grinding was used using special stone blocks. Sometimes grinding is carried out using sanding blocks, which are given appropriate profiles. Drilling holes, primarily cylindrical ones, using tubular bones or bamboo trunks, sharpened in the shape of teeth, is common. Sand was used as an abrasive. The use of sawing, drilling, and grinding made it possible to achieve a certain shape and cleanliness of the surface of the tool. Working with ground tools reduced the resistance of the material of the object being processed, which led to an increase in labor productivity. Over time, the grinding technique reaches a high level. Polished axes were of great importance among the tribes that occupied forest areas. Without such a tool in these areas, the transition to agriculture would be very difficult.

With polished stone axes, rigidly attached to a wooden handle through drilled cylindrical holes, they began to cut down forests, hollow out boats, and build houses.

8 - 7 thousand BC e.

Already early landowners became familiar with metal. In Anatolia (Turkey) and Iran, individual objects and decorations, tools made of copper by cold metal processing were discovered: piercings, beads, awls. However, this method of making tools cannot yet replace the traditional technique of making tools from stone. The final transition from stone tools to metal ones occurred during the period of the slave system.

7 thousand BC e.

The formation of craft production begins.

The settlement of Çatalhöyük in Anatolia was built according to a single plan. It is located near a copper ore deposit, which was developed in II BC. e. For the construction of houses, they began to produce adobe blocks - mud bricks. Their shape was elongated or oval, width 20–25 cm, length – 65–70 cm. They were sculpted from clay mixed with coarsely chopped straw. The oval shape of the brick did not allow the walls of the houses to be made strong; they often collapsed. At the same time, the house was not restored, but rebuilt on the site of the previous building. The bricks were held together with clay and adobe mortar. The floors were painted white or brown.

Rectangular houses, usually one-room, are closely adjacent to each other, the roofs are high and ribbed. Inside there was a rectangular hearth. The length of the living quarters reaches 10 m, the width - 6 m. In the city itself there are many beautifully decorated religious buildings - sanctuaries. By their nature, they differed from residential buildings only in their larger sizes.

Gradually, crafts emerge and people appear who specialize in them. First of all, the profession of a miner stands out. Developments of flint from the Neolithic period were found in France, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and England. Poland is home to one of the oldest mining monuments - primitive flint mines. Large flint-working workshops were discovered in Romania, Moldova, and Ukraine.

Open-pit workings gave way to mine developments. The oldest mines were shallow. The high quality of flint and its beautiful patterned design caused great demand for it.

Remains of textile products have been found in Anatolia, which proves the existence of spinning fabric from raw materials of plant origin and weaving on looms. Patterns woven on textiles have been discovered that resemble patterns on modern Turkish carpets. The raw material for spinning was wool, then silk, cotton and flax. Spinning was carried out in various ways, for example, by twisting the fibers between the palms.

Then spinning was carried out using a spindle with a whorl and a slingshot. At one end of the spindle there was yarn, at the other there was a spindle made of stone or clay to ensure rotation. In this case, the fibers were twisted into a strong thread and wound onto a spindle. They wove on primitive handlooms with a horizontal or vertical warp. The design of the machine was very simple. Two posts were driven into the ground, on which a horizontal bolster was secured. The main threads were tied to the roller, which were pulled with weights. The weft thread was wound around a stick with a pointed end. The weaver pushed this stick with the thread with his fingers alternately above and below the warp threads. Woven fabric and woven matting were dyed. Vegetable dyes, such as moraine, were used as dyes.

In the most developed areas of Western Asia, a further division of labor occurs. Part of the population is not directly involved in food production, but is engaged in handicraft production - the manufacture of tools, instruments, and household items. This division of labor between the farmer and the artisan gradually acquired significant significance for the development of technology and production, for the emergence of cities and the first state institutions.

7 - 6 thousand BC e.

In Anatolia, copper was smelted from ore for the first time, as well as tin. Based on the results of studies of the preserved ash, scientists claim that the smelting temperature reached more than 1000 degrees Celsius. Experts express the opinion that copper was smelted from malachite, and brown coal was used as fuel. Over the next millennium, this method of copper metallurgy spreads to the emerging and developing cities of the Middle East.

Obtaining a certain metal by reducing ore is a further stage in the history of mankind. At first they used a metal of native origin, then they discovered that pieces of, for example, copper ore begin to melt when heated strongly, and when cooled they become solid again, that is, copper acquires a new property. The process of copper smelting was discovered by accident during the firing of ceramic products in kilns.

Later they began the complex process of reducing sulfide ores, in which raw copper was obtained by repeatedly heating the rock. For a long time, copper could not completely replace stone as the main raw material for making tools or compete with it, since the process of obtaining copper was very labor-intensive and complex, and the method of extracting stone was easy and affordable. Only much later did the use of iron produce a real revolution in technology.

6 thousand years BC e.

Polished obsidian boards are used as mirrors. Cosmetic items appear.

The oldest of the roads was built in England, which consisted of wooden walkways laid for pedestrian crossing over a swamp.

6 – 5 thousand BC e.

Agriculture does not develop on the high plains of the Iranian Plateau, Anatolia and the Levant, as before, but in the valleys of large rivers - the Euphrates and Tigris in Mesopotamia, and then the Nile and Indus, where the natural fertility of the soil was used, fertilized by river silt during river floods. The practice of artificial irrigation of crops is gradually spreading, as a result of which agricultural yields significantly increase and conditions are created for the emergence of the first permanent settlements.

Instead of hoes and poles, when cultivating the land, they begin to use a hook, a hook, consisting of a horizontal coulter and a handle. It is assumed that primitive plows and plows were first known in Mesopotamia.

In the Middle East, the processing of copper ores will be improved. Although copper is primarily processed by forging, casting and molding methods are beginning to be explored. Metal production began to develop in open and then in closed forms, as well as the production of various artistic metal products. Later, during the Bronze Age and the period of modern history, this method of metal production becomes of great importance.

As a result of the introduction of the method of smelting metal in molds and in the form of ingots, the manufacturing process of many tools, tools and weapons is significantly reduced. Copper ore is mined in mines, brought to the surface and often transported long distances as a precious raw material. Copper is extracted from rock using fire. The rock is heated to a high temperature, then quickly cooled, for example by water, causing it to crack or split.

They begin to produce items made of silver, gold and tin.

A hammer, a saw, a sewing machine, a car, a tractor - these are all tools that make a person’s life very easy. But how did the ancient people live if they had nothing of this?

If we could miraculously travel back to that time, we would see a picture that was strange to us. Men of an ancient tribe wander along the river bank all day long. They carefully look for stones from which they can make a sharp object. Having found the necessary stones, they hit one stone against another, obtaining a sharpened edge. Small stones make knives, and large stones make axes. Stones were also tied to strong sticks, making sharp clubs with which they hunted animals and fish. It was also possible to make a digging stick from a thick tree branch and a sharp stone. It was used to dig up edible plant roots.

Spears for hunting among people were first made from wooden sticks. They were made with very sharp stone axes and fired over a fire for strength. Then they learned to put tips made of sharp stones on them. They were tied with thin plant fibers. Such arrows have become a reliable weapon in the fight against wild animals.

The most ancient people sewed their clothes from animal skins. The needles were thin, pointed wooden sticks, and the threads were strong plants or thin leather straps. They even made their own shoes from skins!

A big event for the ancient people was that they learned to handle fire. At first the man was very afraid of him. If lightning suddenly set fire to grass or a tree, all the people and animals ran away from there, and the birds flew away. But one day the bravest people managed to get close to the fire. Maybe it was a tree lit during a thunderstorm, or maybe boiling lava from a volcano. For the first time, a person managed to catch a fire by holding out a branch towards it. The branch caught fire - the man had his own home fire! People liked the charcoal-roasted meat and fish. In cold times, the fire warmed, frightened prey during the hunt, and drove away terrible animals at night. People valued fire very much, and if the fire in their home went out, it was a great misfortune.

Then the man realized that it was not necessary to walk for a long time and collect only wild plants, but that he could grow them near his home. To plant something in the ground, it was first dug up with a wooden hoe. This is a simple stick with a short branch.
Seeds were placed in the resulting holes, covered with soil and watered. And the ripe harvest from ears of barley or wheat was cut with a sickle. It was made from wood, with sharp pebbles inserted inside, or from animal bones.

One day a man realized that grains baked in a fire are tastier than raw ones. And later I realized that you can bake cakes from flour. How did you get the flour? To do this, women took two flat stones, placed grains between them and ground them into flour. This is an ancient mill - a grain grinder.

Primitive people needed baskets. They learned to weave them from thin twigs of plants. They collected berries, fruits, and fish in such baskets.

But baskets were needed to store flour and grain. And the man thought - all the grain is pouring out of a basket made of twigs, maybe coat it with clay? But such a basket turned out to be inconvenient - when it rained, the clay got wet.

One day, such a clay basket accidentally fell into a fire, and the man suddenly noticed that the rods had burned out and the clay had become very hard. This is how a person got dishes, and he could cook food in them over a fire.

Women learned to weave clothes. At first they wove rugs from wood bast or straw. And then they came up with the idea of ​​making yarn from flax and animal wool. And they invented the primitive loom. With his help, they completely acquired a human appearance - they began to wear clothes instead of animal skins.

The first tools

Are the beaks of birds, the fangs and teeth of animals more convenient than the tools of labor of people? No! Not a single animal, not a single bird can change the claws or beaks with which they were born for other, better ones.

The first stone tools reached 20 cm in length and weighed up to 100 g. They were constantly carried with them. But pebble tools were not the only ones. Heavy clubs and sharpened sticks were made from the branches. The split bones made strong points.

When the first stone tools appeared, people stopped adapting to nature, as animals do. On the contrary, with the help of tools, people began to change nature and adapt it for themselves.

Development of technology in ancient times

The initial period of human prehistory is called the Paleolithic - the ancient Stone Age. But this is just what they say; in fact, this “century” accounts for 98% of the entire time of human existence. In some corners of the Earth this “age” continues to this day.

Human technology has developed extremely slowly. More than a millennium passed before any progress was noticed in the finishing of stone tools. Slow progress is believed to be due to harsh living and environmental conditions. However, this explanation is questionable, given the presence in some areas of South America, Africa and Australia of tribes of people living in favorable climatic conditions and having a development similar to the Stone Age. Rather, on the contrary, the lack of means for survival and extreme living conditions stimulate development. The slow development of tools during the Paleolithic era is perhaps explained by the development of mankind in other areas. For example, when uniting people into communities, there is a need to form and improve social relationships, as well as the exchange of information - language.

The Paleolithic is followed by the Neolithic - the New Stone Age - a period when stone tools are subjected to increasingly careful processing depending on their purpose; this “age” lasted about 10-12 thousand years.

Primitive people learned from nature, imitated it, without delving into the causes of the occurring mechanical phenomena. A randomly bent tree branch that quickly returned to its original position (bow, catapult, etc.); a rolling tree felled by a storm (rollers, wheel, inertial trap for an animal); the danger posed by a hole covered with foliage (trap).

The known traps of primitive peoples were very diverse, and modern scientists do not always manage to understand the principles of operation of ingenious traps. Based on design and mechanical principles, these traps are divided into four main groups: trap; traps based on the use of gravity; spring traps; twist traps. Sometimes they are quite complex mechanisms. The Montagnais and Naskapi Indians of Labrador, for example, build bear traps that bring down four or five heavy tree trunks on the animal, but a light touch from the bear's nose sniffing the bait is enough to immediately activate the trap.

In the late Mesolithic (Stone Age era, transitional between the Paleolithic and Neolithic), an event of the largest historical scale occurred, which divided the Paleolithic from the Neolithic. In Western Asia, people took a decisive step towards the development of agriculture and cattle breeding. In the Neolithic, not only in the Middle East, but also in Egypt, cultivation of the land and breeding of domestic animals became the basis of the economy. The evolution of societies that moved from an appropriating economy to a producing economy was rapid, absolutely incomparable with the slow development of tribes still engaged in hunting and fishing.

However, the hoe and the plow were not created overnight. Their predecessor was a tool that scientists called a “furrow stick.” This is a simple long stick with a sharp knot at one end. With such a stick it was possible not only to pick the ground, obtaining “gifts of nature” for food, but also to lay furrows separating the ridges from one another. Sometimes this stick had a flat end. This is where the spade or shovel originates. Only gradually, over the course of many centuries, did this stick evolve into a hoe or pickaxe - tools that are equally common in Africa, Asia, and North America. Even at the beginning of the 20th century, a similar tool called “obyl” and a simple shovel, the ozup, were preserved in Altai.

HISTORY OF THE EARTH - if the history of our planet is taken as a year, then the main events are arranged as follows (existence of the planet - 12 months, 1 day = 12.6 million, 1 hour = 525 thousand years): January 1 - Earth (Universe - 3 years). March 28 - bacteria. December 12th is the dawn of dinosaurs. December 26 - extinction of dinosaurs. December 31 - 1 hour - common ancestor of humans and primates. December 31 – 17 - 20 hours - Lucy. December 31 - 18 - 16 hours - first people. December 31 - 23 - 24 hours - Neanderthals. December 31 - 23 hours 59 minutes 46 seconds - Christianity.

The Becoming of Man The roots of design go back centuries and millennia. The formation of “homo sapiens” is associated with anatomical and behavioral changes. Moreover, in order to be classified as “homo sapiens”, people had to be able to draw. At least 40 thousand years ago there was a leap in the development of mankind, a significant change in the type and form of tools began. Perhaps this was a consequence of the formation of the language of communication - man began to think in words and symbols, rather than in images. There has been a transition from the “instinctive mind” to analytical thinking. Drawings in caves and rock paintings (15 thousand years BC) are interpreted as the emergence of the project consciousness of humanity (traps for animals, hunting tactics)

THE ORIGINAL HOMELAND OF HUMANITY is currently identified in eastern Africa. It is here that in the last 35-40 years the remains of the erect walking ancestor of man, Australopithecus, have been found. Stone tools 2.6 million years old were found at the Kada Gona site. The same tools were found in Olduvai, Koobi Fora, Makapsgat, Sterkfontein, Izimila, Kalambo, Broken Hill and other places around the world. No tools older than 1 million years are found in other places on the globe. In Africa, there was obviously a transition from Homo habilis to Homo erectus (upright), and here the remains of the world's oldest hearth were found. Only about 1 million years ago did people begin to spread from East Africa to other continents.

HADAR is the oldest of the sites of primitive man in Ethiopia in the valley of the river. Awash (Gona et al.). Lucy and other remains of a human ancestor were found here. It dates back to 3 - 4 million years ago. Hadar is the center of the Afar Desert. This is an ancient lake bed, now dry and filled with sediments that record past geological events. Here you can trace the volcanic dust and ash that fell millions of years ago, deposits of dirt and sediments of silt washed away from distant mountains, again a layer of volcanic dust, again dirt, etc. All this can be seen, like layers in a slice of pie, in the ravine of a young river , which recently cut through the bottom of the lake.

Lucy's height was small - about 107 cm, although she was an adult. This was determined by her wisdom teeth, which completely erupted several years before her death. Archaeologist Johanson suggests that she died between 25 and 30 years old. She was already beginning to show signs of arthritis or some other bone disease, as evidenced by the deformation of her vertebrae. Lucy, 3.75 million 2.9 million BC e.

Skull of Australopithecus garhi LUCY is a species of Australopithecus. A complete skeleton was found in Hadar in the 70s of the 20th century. This is Afar man, who is considered the ancestor of Australopithecus and Homo habilis. Age 33.7 million years. The volume of the brain exceeds the modern one, r. Awash, 1997 The size of the brush coincides with the brush of a modern person LUCY

The age of the oldest stone tools is 2.9 million years (site Hadar in Ethiopia) and 2.5 million years (sites in Kenya and Tanzania). Before Lucy was found, the oldest skeleton was a Neanderthal. Its age is 75 thousand years.

From the very beginning of his history, man created an artificial habitat around himself, and at the same time he used various technical means - tools. With their help, he obtained food (hunted, fished, collected everything that nature gave), sewed clothes, made household utensils, built houses, created religious buildings and works of art. Primitive people made tools from different materials: stone, volcanic glass, bone, wood, plant fiber. Since the creative transformative attitude is genetically embedded in “homo sapiens,” it is natural to see the origins of design in the appearance of the first tools. Design as a process of shaping tools and household items, when the fundamental goal is to make the object of activity useful, convenient to use and even beautiful. Beauty probably became important on the verge of the Late Paleolithic (before 10 thousand BC) and Neolithic (8-3 thousand BC) ceramic dishes and clothes began to be decorated with ornaments.

The first tools of human labor In the Acheulean culture, such new tools as a HAND CHECK, a CLEAVE, and a point appear. The hand ax is the most striking sign of the Acheulean tradition. This is a large, massive tool made from a piece of stone or flake by beating on both sides. stone ax is an “improved” stone. Ashel. France 900 -350 thousand years BC e. (Enz)

The hand ax is rightfully the first invention of man. It is also the first object that man sought to make easy to use, that is, ergonomic. Handaxes always have the correct geometric shape; they can be oval, almond-shaped or subtriangular. They had a pointed working end that stood out, while the opposite one remained massive and rounded; often it could be unprocessed. The axes were used for tearing, scraping with the blunt end and pushing and stabbing with the elongated end.

STONE AGE - the first period of human history, metal was not known, and tools were made of stone, wood and bone. It is divided into ancient (Paleolithic), middle (Mesolithic) and new (Neolithic). The duration of the Stone Age varied in different regions of the Earth. Some tribes remain at the Stone Age stage to this day.

PALEOLITHIC - Old Stone Age. The longest period in human history. It began 2.6 million years ago and ended approx. 11 -12 thousand years ago. It is divided into early (lower) (Olduvai, Acheulian, Mousterian cultures) and late (upper) (Aurignacian, Solutre, Madeleine, Seletian cultures, Kostenko-Vorshchevskaya culture, Périgord, Annetovskaya, etc.). Sometimes the Middle Paleolithic is distinguished (Pre-Moustier, Mousterian).

PREHISTORIC ART - the art of Marcelino Sanz de Sautola, discoverer of Altamira. the most ancient people. It originates in the first stages of human development. However, only from the time of the Late Paleolithic have expressive monuments of painting, sculpture, and applied art reached us. The first monuments of primitive painting were found more than 100 years ago. In 1879, the Spanish archaeologist M. Sautola discovered multicolored images of the Paleolithic era in the Altamira cave (Spain). In 1895, drawings of primitive man were found in the La Mout cave in France.

During these years fr. archaeologists E. Cartagliac and A. Breuil explore the Altamira cave. Its length is 280 m, the 150 images of animals on the ceiling and walls of the cave are amazing. Art critics compare them with the works of Phidias, Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci.

In 1901, in France, A. Breuil discovered drawings of a mammoth, bison, deer, horse, and bear in the Le Cave. Combarelles in the Vézère Valley. There are about 300 drawings here, there are also images of people (in most cases wearing masks). Not far from Le. Combarelle in the same year, the archaeologist Peyronie in the Font de Gaume cave opens a whole “art gallery” - 40 wild horses, 23 mammoths, 17 deer. The drawings were made with ocher and other paints, the secret of which has not been revealed to this day.

For a long time, caves with Paleolithic paintings were found only in Spain, France and Italy. In 1959, zoologist A.V. Ryumin discovered painting in the Kapova Cave in the Urals.

STONE AGE ART Its first small forms were found by E. Larte during the excavation of a cave in the 60s of the 19th century. At the turn of the Mesolithic, animalism (depictions of animals) dried up, being replaced mostly by schematic and ornamental works. Only in small regions - the Spanish Levant, Kobystan in Azerbaijan, Zarautsay in Central Asia and Neolithic rock paintings (petroglyphs of Karelia, rock paintings of the Urals) did the monumental-story tradition of the Paleolithic continue. For a long time, caves with Paleolithic paintings were found only in Spain, France and Italy.

Carbon dating has shown that the earliest examples of cave painting known today are over 30,000 thousand years old, and the latest are about 12,000 thousand years old.

In the Late Paleolithic, sculptural depictions of naked (less often clothed) women became widespread. The sizes of the figurines are small: only 5 - 10 cm and, as a rule, no more than 12 - 15 cm in height. They are carved from soft stone, limestone or marl, less often from soapstone or ivory. Such figurines - they are called Paleolithic Venus - were found in France, Belgium, Italy, Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Ukraine, but especially many of them were found in Russia. It is generally accepted that figurines of naked women depict the ancestral goddess, since they emphatically express the idea of ​​motherhood and fertility.

TRADE IN THE STONE AGE - obsidian deposits were discovered in the Near and Middle East in ancient times. Both are in Anatolia (Türkiye). One of them is not far from the lake. Van, another - in the river valley. Konya. Even at the end of the Paleolithic, obsidian was mined here for exchange. In the Mesolithic, Anatolian obsidian tools spread over thousands of km. . Some scholars believe that these first cities themselves arose due to trade. Small communities that began to engage in agriculture in the Tigris and Euphrates valley needed many goods (wood, stone, jewelry). This could only be obtained hundreds and thousands of kilometers away. These small communities themselves were not able to send expeditions so far. And then they began to unite around the temples and equip common detachments for a campaign against the village. and behind the stone, and behind the gold, and behind the tree. This is what united these small communities. And only then they began to build large dams and cities.

According to the first written documents that have reached us, 70 centuries ago, trade routes mainly went north. Now they have been studied from Southern Mesopotamia to Central Asia. However, it is possible that these trade routes went further, right up to the Southern Urals, where there were especially many precious stones and gold. Only ok. 50 centuries ago, trade routes began to develop in other directions. On maps compiled from ancient materials from 3350 to 3150 BC. e. , the longest trade route goes from Mesopotamia to the northeast past the southern coast of the Caspian Sea to Central Asia and then, apparently, along the eastern coast of the Caspian Sea to the Urals. In 3050 -2900 BC. e. a trade route to Afghanistan was laid and only in the period from 2750 to 2650 BC. e. the trade route to the north is abandoned. A sea route to India is established. Special seaports are being built on the Persian Gulf islands to stop ships on such a long journey. Trading cities emerge in the northeast of the Arabian Peninsula. Trade routes stretch towards India for 5 thousand km or more. The sea route to India replaced the shorter, but difficult and dangerous land route north to the Urals.

MESOLITHIC - a transitional era between the Paleolithic and Neolithic (between the 12th and 6th millennia BC). During the M. era, microlith technology developed, composite tools appeared (a shaft made of wood or bone, a blade made of flint sharp knife-like plates), and harvesting knives with flint inserts, which made it possible to speed up the collection of wild cereals and the transition to agriculture. The first mechanisms appeared, including the bow and arrow, which made hunting more efficient. The first animals were domesticated in the Mesolithic. The mammoth complex of animals finally dies out and the modern animal world takes shape.

During the Mesolithic era, large workshops for the production of stone tools appeared; they supplied their neighbors with products made from jasper, rock crystal and obsidian. For the first time, exchange markets are emerging, covering vast territories. For example, obsidian from Turkey and the Armenian Highlands spread throughout the Near and Middle East and reached Mesopotamia and India. All innovations of the Mesolithic in northern Europe are associated mainly with wood processing or fishing.

Armed with a boomerang, weapons with inserts, a bow, arrows, a “spear of death,” a person could now safely leave the inhabited but hungry regions, moving to the village. following the retreating glacier. As excavations have shown, it was at this time that man not only populated the regions of the Far North of our country, but also from Siberia, through the Bering Strait, entered North America, populated the entire American continent, and from South America across the ocean on rafts - Oceania and Polynesia. In general, about 12 thousand years ago, a great revolution in nature began.

Man began to protect the most docile herbivores from predators and from hunger. Animals began to get used to humans. Domestication has begun. The first to be domesticated were sheep, bulls, goats, cows and dogs. To protect grain reserves, man tamed the cat. In the Mesolithic, stone processing techniques also began to change. Knife-shaped plates almost displace all other stone products. Composite, inserted tools appear, quickly and widely spread. The knife-like plates become so narrow and thin that they are sometimes as sharp as our razors. Archaeologists call this technique microlithic, and the products themselves are called microliths (from “micros” - small, “cast” - stone).

NEOLITHIC REVOLUTION - the transition of humanity from subsisting on hunting and gathering to subsisting on agriculture. You and I live thanks to agriculture and cattle breeding, and all of humanity now lives. After all, all those cereals (wheat, barley, millet, lentils) that first began to be cultivated in the 10th-8th millennium BC. e. in the Zagros Mountains, Anatolia, Southwestern Iran and Jericho, we still grow it today. Until now, we eat bread “invented” in the Mesolithic - Neolithic. All those animals that were domesticated by Neolithic people in the Near and Middle East - goat, sheep, cow, bull, pig, only these animals are bred today. After almost 3 million years of unsustainable existence from hunting and gathering, man turned to agriculture. The history of agriculture begins somewhere around the 10th millennium BC. e.

The impetus for the transition was apparently a sharp rise in temperature on the planet between the 11th and 9th millennia BC. e. Man had to take care of preserving diminishing supplies of natural food and learn to cultivate cereals and raise livestock in captivity. This led to the emergence of civilization. HOE FARMING is the oldest type of agriculture, which appeared in the Neolithic and is still used by backward tribes. Neolithic. Complex tools for farming.

AGRICULTURE - cultivation of land to obtain products. Along with the domestication of animals, agriculture appears in the southwest. Asia and Egypt. Wheat and barley were the first to be grown here (c. 7000 BC), later oats and rye in Europe, millet and rice in Asia, sorghum in Africa. In America, beans, cotton, pumpkin, maize, cassava, potatoes, and zucchini were domesticated. The transition from food production by hunting and gathering to an agricultural (productive) economy is called the Neolithic revolution.

ENEOLITHIC (COPPER-STONE AGE) - a transitional era from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age. In the Near and Middle East V - III millennium BC. e. , in Europe - from the 3rd millennium BC. e.

COPPER AGE - ENEOLITHIC In Asia it corresponds to the time of the emergence of civilization, in Europe - large migrations in connection with the transition to pastoral cattle breeding and resettlement from the forest-steppe to the steppe, in 3. Europe - the movement of tribes of beakers and corded ceramics, in the Urals - the movement of tribes of the Surtandin, Agidel cultures . COPPER is one of the first, if not the very first metal used by man. Found in nature in its pure form. In later times it was extracted from malachite and other ores. The most ancient products made of native copper were found in Chayenu (7000 BC). Later, copper began to be melted and cast in open molds.

BRONZE AGE - one of the three centuries of general archaeological periodization (Stone, Bronze and Iron Ages). The era of the spread of bronze (an alloy of copper and tin in a ratio of 9: 1). Compared to copper, bronze melts at a lower temperature, produces fewer cracks during melting, and most importantly, tools made from it are harder and more durable than copper ones. The casting of bronze tools required rare tin, which led to the development of the tin trade and the spread of technical innovations and knowledge. In Asia, the Bronze Age coincides with the emergence of civilization, so this name is practically not used here. The Early Bronze Age in Eastern Europe has not yet been sufficiently studied. The Late Bronze Age (cultures: ancient Pit, Srubnaya, Abashevskaya, Andronovo, Catacomb, etc.) is the period of formation of large ethnocultural communities and migrations. In America, bronze was used until 1000 AD. e. (Argentina). The Aztecs knew her, but she did not play such a big role as in the Old World. In the Near and Middle East of the 3rd millennium BC. e. , in Europe - II millennium BC. e. B.v. Follows the Chalcolithic and predates the Iron Age.

IRON AGE - the period following the Bronze Age. It starts at different times in different countries. In some regions, such as Africa, iron became the first metal, and therefore the Bronze Age was practically absent there. In America, the Iron Age appeared only with the arrival of Europeans. In most of Asia, the Iron Age coincides with the historical period. In Europe, the Iron Age begins at the end of the 2nd millennium BC. e. The most ancient iron-making furnaces date back to the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC. e. They belonged to the Hittites. The cultures of the Iron Age in Italy are Villanian, in Central and 3rd Europe Hallstatt and La Tène, in Eastern Europe Ananyino, Sauromatian, Scythian, etc.

Composite tools. Invention of the handle. Composite tools are a combination of several elements of different types of axes and sticks. Stone axes, hoes, spears - 4 -3 thousand BC. e. A definite impetus for improving tools was the invention of drilling. Grinding and polishing techniques were mastered. The creation of complex composite tools is the first prototype of modern layout activities, solving ergonomic issues that form the basis of design today. Composite tools made it possible to increase the impact force many times over, and therefore the efficiency and productivity of labor. Late Neolithic.

Invention of the bow and arrow Invention in the Mesolithic around 10 -5 thousand years BC. e. bow, string and arrows - essentially the first technically complex weapon. With the help of a bow, it became possible to transmit and transform movement. The bow and arrow allowed man to kill animals at a distance of 100 -150 m, and in some cases up to 900 m. Appearing in the Mesolithic (12 -7 thousand years BC), they became the main type of weapon until the 17th century. The bow was used to drill, and musical instruments were made from it. Mesolithic. Bow hunting

BOW AND ARROW - the most important tools of Stone Age man, appeared at the end of the Paleolithic. In the Mesolithic, bows and arrows began to spread widely throughout the globe and became the fastest-firing and most perfect weapon of primitive man. The onion retained its dominant role for about 12-15 thousand years. Bow and Arrows helped man defend his existence in the difficult conditions of the Arctic and subarctic climate. A bow is not just a weapon, but a whole mechanism. Its structure suggests that man in the Mesolithic era already learned some laws of mechanics. Using the principles of Bow, a person at this time creates a large number of all kinds of hunting traps. During excavations of Mesolithic sites, Bows as tall as a man were found; They are made from elm - the best wood for bows in Northern Europe. The shafts of the Arrows reached 1 m in length. With such Bows and Arrows, people successfully hunted.

The best of the ancient L. were found during excavations of Neolithic sites in the Baikal region and the Urals. S. were made of wood; they were found in large numbers during excavations of Neolithic sites near Yekaterinburg and Kargopol. Sometimes reed arrows were also used. Arrows with tips made of stone, bone, or tooth were usually used. There are tips both with a blunt end and in the form of a ball. Such S. were used for hunting colorfully colored birds and small fur-bearing animals, so as not to stain the feathers with blood or spoil the skins. Poisoned and incendiary fires were widely used. The Indians used incendiary fires to destroy them. Entire enemy settlements. The methods of shooting from a laser are varied: standing, lying down, sitting. The combat range of a spear thrown by hand is 30 -40 m, with the help of a spear thrower it is 70 -80 m. The combat range of a lance is 80 -100 m, and from a heavy Indian lance it reaches 450 m. The rate of fire for a good shooter reaches 20 rounds per minute. S. a warrior of the Apache tribe pierced right through a man at a distance of 300 steps. During the era of the Conquest in Central America, there were cases when Spaniard riders found themselves not only pierced through the horse, but also nailed to the horse.

The shapes of the bow, like other composite weapons, have been subjected to multiple modernizations over many millennia, associated with the discovery of new materials and technologies, and the acquisition of new knowledge in the field of ergonomics. At the same time, their basic design diagram and functional idea remains to this day in many cases without any special changes. ASSYRIA

At the dawn of technical civilization, humanity made many great discoveries and inventions, each of which raised it to a new stage of development and opened up more and more technical possibilities. Around 40,000 BC e. – artificial production of fire Around 10,000 BC. e. - the invention of the oar and boat, which gave man the first means of transportation 6,000 BC. e. - drilling, sawing and grinding stone, which led to a real revolution in society Around 8,000 BC. e. – hoe farming Reconstruction of methods of drilling stone of the Neolithic period

BOATS - the oldest of those found in the form of canoes dug out of logs date back to the Mesolithic (for example, in Maglemose in Denmark, etc.). In the Bronze Age, boats made of planks appeared. The boards were attached to the frames end-to-end or across and tied. Nails have been used since Roman times.

Invention of the wheel and cart Image of a chariot. Southern Kazakhstan Having invented the wheel, man not only improved objects of natural origin, but made something completely new. Scientists believe that the first wheels were created in Sumer about 5,200 years ago. The invention of the wheel and the manufacture of carts occurred during the transition from a nomadic to a sedentary lifestyle.

The oldest drawing of a wheel was found in Ur (3400 BC). At the same time, a potter's wheel appears. The wheels were initially solid. Wheeled carts were found in mounds of the southern Russian steppes and the Urals of the 3rd-2nd millennium BC. e. Two-wheeled military chariots first appeared in Syria in the 3rd millennium BC. e. In pre-Columbian America, the wheel was hardly used.

Before the invention of the wheel, gravity was moved overland using rollers and levers. The middle part of such a roller was fired, which made it thinner and ensured uniform movement of the load. With the development of cattle breeding, pack animals began to be used, and wheelless drags appeared, which became the prototype of sleighs. Drawings of carts from an ancient Aryan manuscript

The first images of a wheeled cart that have come down to us were found in Mesopotamia; They date back to the 4th millennium BC. e. A wheeled cart consists of wheels, axles and a platform for cargo. The harness is also very important - a technical device that allows you to harness a draft animal (donkey, mule or bull). It is interesting that the wooden collar was first attached to the animal’s head and only much later - to the neck.

Later, to facilitate the construction of the wheel, holes were cut out in it, and even later a rim and spokes appeared (around 2000 BC). They were much easier to use for war chariots. The first prototype of a friction-reducing bearing was invented by craftsmen from Denmark around 100 BC. e. placing wooden rollers along the axis of the wheel. Later they were improved and two rollers were manufactured separately with an axis between

It is difficult to find another discovery that would give such a powerful impetus to the development of technology as the discovery of the wheel. A cart, a potter's wheel, a mill, a water wheel and a block - this is not a complete list of devices that are based on a wheel. Each of these inventions constituted an era in the life of mankind.

Over time, the wheel formed the basis of the potter's wheel, mill, and water wheel. The water wheel is the “great-grandfather” of the water mill. Note that in different countries the designs of water-lifting wheels were different. Having played a significant role in the development of agriculture of ancient civilizations, the shaduf and the water-lifting wheel entered the history of mankind. The creation of devices for raising water - this serious technical problem arose during irrigation work in the valleys of the great rivers - the Tigris, Euphrates, Indus, Yellow River, Nile, on the banks of which ancient agricultural civilizations arose. Shaduf - similar to a crane - a long lever with a counterweight. Such cranes can still be found near wells in many villages in Russia. Shaduf was used in the East for a very long time.

WEAVING AND WEAVING Weaving has radically changed the life and appearance of man. Humanity has mastered the technique of weaving - fishing gear, fish traps, baskets. Only after learning to weave mats from branches and reeds were people able to begin weaving threads. After the domestication of animals, it became possible to produce fabrics from their wool. needle Paleolithic Traditionally it was believed that weaving appeared in the Mesolithic, and weaving only in the Neolithic. New archaeological finds make these crafts significantly “age up”. The most ancient images of fabrics and weaving were discovered at the Upper Paleolithic site of Pavlov-1 (Moravia, Czech Republic). They were created about 26-25 thousand years ago. The fabrics are made from nettle fibers and have several types of complex weave of threads. A variety of plant fibers are used in braided rope samples.

The first objects made of ceramics At the end of the Stone Age (5-3 thousand years BC), man creates the first artificial materials - textiles and ceramics. While engaged in agriculture, man became acquainted with clay, which first coated the wicker walls of dwellings, and then wicker dishes. At the Siberian site “Maininskaya” on the left bank of the Upper Yenisei, a figurine of a man was discovered, made approximately in the 15th millennium BC. e. A figurine made of reddish-brown fired clay mixed with individual grains of sand. Height 9.6 cm.

CERAMICS - fired earthenware. When fired at 400°C, water evaporates from the clay molecules, and the clay turns into stone. The ease of applying ornaments to raw clay when molding vessels made it possible for primitive man to express his creative capabilities and worldview, the study of which provides a lot of information to archaeologists. The fragility of K. led to the accumulation of a large number of shards at the site of the settlement. K. is the most widespread type of finds at archaeological sites since the Neolithic.

The oldest Neolithic pots, as a rule, are large in size and have very thin walls. The height of the vessels often reaches half a meter or more, and yet the thickness of their walls does not exceed 1 cm, i.e. the ratio of thickness to diameter is 1: 25, 1: 30 and even 1: 50. A masterpiece of architectural architecture - the dome of the Pantheon has a diameter ratio to the thickness of the dome 1: 20. In other words, in Ceramics, the predynastic period of Egypt and the Stone Age, when creating vessels, a more optimal ratio of the thickness and diameter of the vault was achieved than in later times. Archaeologists call such vessels ovoid; their shape resembles huge eggs. They are shaped like an egg with the blunt part cut off by 1/4. Clay dwellings with an egg-shaped vault were found in Jericho (their age is approximately 10 thousand years).

The most ancient objects made of baked clay were found in Czechoslovakia, at the Dolni site. Vestonice. This is not yet clay dishes (people will invent it almost 20 thousand years later). These are figurines of animals and people made of clay, and pieces of baked clay. Radiocarbon analysis has established that they were made 25600+170 years ago. The first ceramic vessels were very fragile and often broke. That is why so many shards are found in excavations. The dishes were made frequently and in large quantities. The most valuable things were stored in the vessels - grain. Some tribes painted protective designs on the walls of vessels, others squeezed magical signs into wet clay. From these drawings you can learn a lot: what tribe lived in this or that place, where it came from, how long it lived, what spirits they believed in, etc.

The earliest pottery is called molded pottery: it was made without the aid of a potter's wheel. They sculpted in two ways - tape (or rope) and by knocking out. In the first case, a clay sausage was laid circle by circle, and then the product was smoothed. In the second, the desired shape was knocked out of a clay ball. At first, pottery was fired either in charcoal pits or in hearths. Then they came up with a pottery forge - a special kiln with two compartments: fuel was placed in one, and the fired products were placed in the other. In the Near East, forges already existed. Ceramic production and painting of tomb walls in Egypt. in the VII-VI millennia BC. e.

The potter's wheel appeared relatively late - in the Eneolithic (the transition period from the Stone Age to the Bronze Age). The first, not very perfect circles were used in the 4th millennium BC. e. in Mesopotamia (city of Uruk). At first the potter's wheel was stationary and only then became rotating. Ceramics, Uruk God Khanum creates a man on a potter's wheel Ceramics, Egypt

Ceramic containers were used to store food supplies and water. Such dishes appear 13-12 thousand years ago in Japanese and Chinese Mesolithic cultures. To prevent the dishes from cracking during firing, mineral and plant additives were mixed into the clay dough: hunter-gatherers - ash, crushed shells, gruss (crushed charcoal), fibers of wild plants; farmers - straw of cultivated cereals, manure and chamotte (crushed ceramics). Ceramics, China, 18 thousand years old.

Metal casting. Mass production. The Stone Age gave way to the Copper Age, and then to the Bronze and Iron Age. The transition from the Stone Age to the Bronze Age is called the Eneolithic (from the Latin aeneus - “copper” and the Greek “li”tos”), which means “copper-stone”. This period began in the 4th-3rd millennia BC. Among the numerous stone tools of that time, archaeologists also discover copper ones. The most ancient ones are made from nuggets - randomly found natural pieces of pure copper, sometimes they weighed up to 260 kg. Pure copper (and nuggets contained up to 99.98% metal) is viscous and viscous, which means very soft material unsuitable for the manufacture of weapons and tools.

People considered heavy pieces of native metal to be stones, and therefore they tried to process them like ordinary stones - by beating. The “stones” under the blows of the hammer did not split, but changed shape and became harder. Cold forging method. In Sumer, cold working of copper was used until approximately the end of the 4th millennium BC. e. Primitive copper tools and weapons dating back to the same period have been found in Egypt. Archaeologists suggest that there were not as many cold-forged copper tools as stone ones. Most of them were apparently melted down after the invention of smelting and casting metals.

About 3 thousand years BC. e. in Sumer, metal products were already cast in molds. Cast copper products were in considerable demand. When the reserves of native metal were exhausted, copper began to be mined from the bowels of the Earth. Some places of its extraction in the 3rd millennium BC. e. - with the remains of mines, their equipment and tools of ancient miners - found by archaeologists in Spain, Portugal, England and other countries. At the beginning of the Chalcolithic, copper ore was smelted in special pits, and later in small stone furnaces coated with clay on the inside. A fire was lit in them, and charcoal and copper concentrate obtained after washing were placed on top in layers. The smelted copper flowed to the bottom of the furnace. Liquid slag was drained through a hole in the wall. After the melting was completed, the cake-like ingot of cooled copper was removed from the furnace.

Around the III-II millennium BC. e. In Europe and Asia, people learned to smelt copper alloys. It was discovered that copper tools could be significantly improved if black, brown and reddish-brown cassiterite stones - tin ore - were added to the copper during smelting. (Such stones were found in copper mines and on the surface of the Earth next to copper nuggets.) The result was an alloy that is now called bronze. Having hardened, it turned out to be much harder and more elastic than copper. And its melting point was lower (700 -900°). Bronze Age tools

A variety of bronze products were much superior in quality to stone ones and were especially widely used around the 20th - 13th centuries. BC e. But even then metals could not completely displace stone. This happened only at the beginning of the 1st millennium BC. e. , when cheap and durable iron began to be used everywhere. The Iron Age has arrived. Iron is one of the most common chemical elements in the earth's crust. Tools and weapons made of iron alloys are durable and can be hardened. Until now, iron and its various alloys remain the most important technical materials. About 95% of all metal products are made from them. Therefore, we can say: the Iron Age, which began about 3 thousand years ago, continues to this day.

4 thousand years BC e. - invention of papyrus, beginning of the production of cotton fabrics in India, China, Egypt. About 3 thousand years BC. e. The Bronze Age began, silver and gold began to be processed, and iron production began (Armenia).

Division of labor. Isolation of craft. From their own many years of experience, primitive people were convinced that it is easier to survive in the wild if everyone does what they can do better than others. The tools necessary for the tribe - sharp axes and knives for cutting meat and breaking bones, scrapers and piercing awls for dressing skins and sewing clothes, etc. became no less important than hunting. When other members of the tribe went to get food, the primitive craftsmen probably stayed in the caves and made the first technology in human history. Over time, a division also occurred among the craftsmen: some began making stone and bone tools, others - making arrows and darts, and others - processing hides. Each ancient “specialist” tried to improve his tools, adapting them, if possible, for a specific task. The result was the first "specialized sets" of tools. Since ancient times, division and specialization of labor have helped to improve skills and technology.

The first major social division of labor occurred already under the primitive communal system: the separation of pastoral tribes from agricultural ones. Cattle breeding provided new products - milk, wool, the production of cheese and butter began, and a new form of utensils arose - the wineskin. The use of wool led to the appearance of felt and fabric, the invention of the spindle and the simplest loom. Domesticated cattle made it possible to replace human work with animal traction, which marked the beginning of pack and horse-drawn transport. The transformation of cattle breeding into an independent occupation enriched technology - the hoe developed into a plow, the knife into a sickle, and the harrow was invented. The processing of agricultural products brought to life the threshing of grain, baking bread, preparing vegetable oil, and brewing beer.

Under the slave system, further social division of labor led to specialization in agriculture, the emergence of a class of artisans, and the emergence of trade as a special type of activity. The activities of merchants were associated with the improvement of roads, the production of luxury goods and coinage, as well as the widespread use of wheeled vehicles and sailing ships. Decoration in the form of a sailboat, Bronze Age

The development of crafts and trade led to the formation of cities and specialization within crafts. A consequence of the formation of individual crafts was the specialization of tools. In Rome, during the time of Julius Caesar, the following hammers were used: blacksmith's, carpenter's, shoemaker's, stonemason's, etc. Hafadis site, Sumer Reconstruction of Babylon

Specialization within the craft led to a number of new inventions. Among them are the plow, the mill, presses for grapes and olives, lifting mechanisms, methods of heat treatment of iron, the use of soldering, stamping and etching of metal, the production of sour bread, and the development of mechanisms built on the rotational principle.

Gradually, more and more people began to participate in the manufacture of equipment, the construction of dwellings, temples and irrigation canals, and the tools used became noticeably more complex. To manage the work, special knowledge and skills were required. In the III-II millennia BC. e. The organization of technical activities was undertaken by the priests of the temples - the most educated and knowledgeable people. This is evidenced by preserved written sources - clay tablets of the Sumerians and Babylonians, papyrus scrolls of the Egyptians.

The found texts brought to us the names of the first architects and construction managers. In particular, the step pyramid and mortuary temple of Pharaoh Djoser in Saqqara (Egypt) were built under the leadership of the priest Imhotep (circa 28th century BC). Imhotep's fame was so great that he was revered by the Egyptians for many years after of death.

WRITING is the most important discovery of antiquity. It is no coincidence that with the advent of writing, human history accelerates. Only about 7 thousand years ago the first written documents first appeared, and during this short period (of approximately 2.6 million years of history) humanity passed from primitiveness to modern society.

Macroliths or stone tools are the labor tools of primitive people, which were made from various types of stone, pebbles using the stone upholstery method.

The first stone tools

The first stone tools were pebble tools. The earliest find is a chopper found, dating back to 2.7 million years BC. e. The first archaeological culture to use stone tools was the Olduvai archaeological culture. This culture existed in the period from 2.7 to 1 million years BC. e.

Choppers were also used by Australopithecines, but their disappearance did not stop the production of such tools; many cultures used pebbles as a material until the beginning of the Bronze Age.

Australopithecines made tools in a primitive way: they simply smashed one stone against another, and then simply selected a suitable fragment. Australopithecines soon learned to process such axes using bones or other stones. They used the other stone as an axe, making the sharp end even sharper.

So Australopithecines developed something like a cutter, which was a flat stone with one sharp edge. The main difference between it and a chopper was that such a cutter did not chisel, but cut, for example, wood.

Revolution in the making of stone tools

Around 100,000 years ago, people realized that it was more efficient to first shape a large stone into simple geometric shapes and then chip off thin slabs of stone.

Often such a plate no longer required further processing, since the cutting side became sharp after chipping.

Breakthrough in weaponry

Around 20 thousand BC. e. The ancestors of people realized that stone tools would become more effective if wooden handles, or handles made of bone, or animal horns were attached to them. It was during this period that the first primitive axes appeared. In addition, people began to make the first spears with stone tips; they were significantly stronger than ordinary wooden tips.

When they came up with the idea of ​​attaching stone to wood, then the size of these tools decreased significantly, and so-called microliths appeared.

Microliths are small stone tools. Macroliths, in turn, are large stone tools, size from 3 cm, everything up to 3 cm is microliths.

In Paleolithic times, a primitive knife was made from a long piece of stone that was sharp at one or both ends. Now the technology has changed: small fragments of stone (microliths) were glued to a wooden handle using resin, so a primitive blade was obtained. Such a tool could serve as a weapon, and was much longer than a regular knife, but it was not durable, since the microliths often broke upon impact. Such a tool or weapon was very simple to manufacture.
At the time when the last ice age began on Earth, or rather when it was already coming to an end, many tribes had a demand for a partially sedentary life, and this way of life required some kind of technical revolution, tools had to become more advanced.

Mesolithic tools

During this time period, people learned new methods of processing stone tools, including grinding, drilling and sawing stone.

They polished the stone in the following way: they took the stone and rubbed it on wet sand, this could last for several tens of hours, but such a blade was already lighter and sharper.

The drilling technique also significantly improved the tools, since it was easier to connect the stone with the shaft, and this design was much stronger than the previous one.

Polishing spread very slowly, with widespread use of such technology only taking place in the fourth millennium BC. At the same time, in Egypt they were already using tools made of copper; the Egyptians did not master the grinding technique.

Stone tools in the Neolithic era

During this period, the production of microliths - small stone tools - was significantly improved. Now they already had the correct geometric shape; they formed even blades. The sizes of such guns became standard, meaning they were very easy to replace. To make such identical blades, the stone was split into several plates.

When the first states appeared in the Middle East, the profession of a mason appeared, who specialized in the professional processing of stone tools. So in the territory of Ancient Egypt and Central America, the first masons could even carve long stone daggers.

Soon microlites were replaced by macrolites, and now plate technology was forgotten. In order to take stone tools somewhere, it was necessary to find accumulations of stone on the surface; primitive quarries appeared in such places.

The reason for the emergence of quarries was the small amount of suitable stone for creating tools. To make high-quality, sharp and fairly light tools, obsidian, flint, jasper or quartz were needed.

When population density increased, the first states began to be created, migrations to stone were already difficult, then primitive trade arose, in places where there were deposits of stone, local tribes took it to places where this stone was not enough. It was the stone that became the first item of trade between tribes.

Obsidian tools were especially valuable because they were sharp and hard. Obsidian is a volcanic glass. The main disadvantage of obsidian was its rarity. The most commonly used materials were quartz and its varieties and jasper. Minerals such as jade and slate were also used.

Many Aboriginal tribes still use stone tools. In places where he did not reach, mollusk shells and bones were used as tools; in worst cases, people used only wooden tools.