About three million years ago, our ancestors made chipped stones and rudimentary cutters. Two million years ago, bifaces.
A million years ago, early humans sometimes used fire, but with difficulty.
Until, 500,000 years ago, technological change accelerated, as spearheads, fire art, axes, beads and bows appeared.
This technological revolution was not the work of one kind. Innovations emerged in different groups — Homo sapiens modern, sapiens primitive, possibly even Neanderthals—and then spread.
Instead of being invented by different people independently, they were discovered once and then shared.
This implies that some smart people created many of the greatest inventions in history. And not all of these people were modern humans.
the spearhead
500,000 years ago, in southern Africa, the Homo sapiens primitive first attached stone blades to wooden spears, creating the spearhead.
Spearheads were revolutionary as weaponry and as the first “composite tools”—combining components.
The spearhead spread, appearing 300,000 years ago in East Africa and the Middle East — and 250,000 years ago in Europe, wielded by Neanderthals.
This pattern suggests that the spearhead was gradually transmitted from one people to another, all the way from Africa to Europe.
the art of fire
By 400,000 years ago, evidence of fire, including charcoal and burned bones, became common in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
This happened at roughly the same time everywhere—rather than randomly, in disconnected places—suggesting that invention was followed by rapid dissemination.
The usefulness of fire is obvious, and keeping the fire burning is easy. Starting the fire is more difficult, however, and was probably the main barrier.
In this case, the widespread use of fire probably marked the invention of friction fire—where a stick is rotated against another piece of wood to create friction, a tool still used by hunter-gatherers today.
Interestingly, the oldest evidence of the regular use of fire comes from Europe — then inhabited by Neanderthals.
You Did Neanderthals Master the Art of Fire First? Why not? Their brains were as big as ours; they used them for something, and because they lived through Europe’s ice age winters, Neanderthals needed fire more than fire. Homo sapiens African.
the ax
270,000 years ago, in central Africa, bifaces began to disappear, being replaced by a new technology, the axe.
Axes looked like small, fat bifaces, but they were radically different tools.
Microscopic scratches show that they were attached to wooden handles — making them a veritable axe with a handle.
Axes quickly spread across Africa, then were taken by modern humans to the Arabian Peninsula, Australia, and finally Europe.
Ornamentation
The oldest beads are 140,000 years old and come from Morocco.
They were made from perforated snail shells, strung in sequence on a string.
At the time, the Homo sapiens archaic inhabited North Africa, so its creators were not modern humans.
Beads appeared in Europe between 115,000 – 120,000 years ago, used by Neanderthals, and were finally adopted by modern humans in southern Africa 70,000 years ago.
Archery
The oldest arrowheads appeared in southern Africa over 70,000 years ago, probably made by the ancestors of the Bushmen, who lived there 200,000 years ago.
Arcs then spread to modern humans in East Africa, to southern Asia 48,000 years ago, to Europe 40,000 years ago, and finally to Alaska and the Americas 12,000 years ago.
You Neanderthals never adopted bows, but the timing of the bow’s spread means it was likely used against them by the Homo sapiens.
exchange technology
It is not impossible for people to have invented similar technologies in different parts of the world at approximately the same time, and in some cases this must have happened.
But the simplest explanation for the archaeological data we have is that instead of reinventing technologies, many advances were made just once and then spread widely.
After all, assuming fewer innovations requires fewer assumptions.
But how did the technology spread? It is unlikely that prehistoric individuals traveled long distances, passing through lands held by hostile tribes (although there were obviously major migrations over generations), so African humans likely did not meet Neanderthals in Europe, or vice versa.
Instead, technology and ideas spread by being transferred from one group or tribe to another, and so on, in a vast chain linking the Homo sapiens modern in southern Africa, to archaic humans in northern and eastern Africa and Neanderthals in Europe.
The conflict could have driven the exchange, with people stealing or capturing tools and weapons.
Native Americans, for example, obtained horses by capturing them from the Spaniards.
But it’s likely that people often just swapped technologies, simply because it was safer and easier. Even today, penniless modern hunter-gatherers trade—Hadzabe hunters trade honey for iron arrowheads made by neighboring tribes, for example.
Archeology shows that this type of exchange is ancient.
Ostrich eggshell beads from South Africa, up to 30,000 years old, have been found more than 300 kilometers from where they were made.
200 thousand – 300 thousand years ago, the Homo sapiens Archaic East Africans used obsidian (rock type) tools from 50-150 kilometers away, farther than modern hunter-gatherers usually travel.
Finally, we must not ignore human generosity — some exchanges may have simply been gifts.
Human history and prehistory have undoubtedly been fraught with conflict — but just as now, tribes may have had peaceful interactions — pacts, marriages, friendships — and they may have simply gifted their neighbors with technology.
Stone Age Geniuses
The pattern seen here—single origin followed by spread of innovations—has another notable implication.
Progress may have been highly dependent on particular individuals rather than the inevitable result of broader cultural forces.
Let’s look at the case of the bow. It is so useful that its invention seems obvious and inevitable.
But if it was really obvious, we would have seen bows invented over and over again in different parts of the world.
But Native Americans did not invent the bow—nor did Aboriginal Australians, nor did the peoples of Europe and Asia.
Instead, it seems that a clever Bushman invented the bow, and then everyone adopted it.
The invention of this hunter would change the course of human history for thousands of years, determining the fate of peoples and empires.
The prehistoric pattern resembles what we saw in historical times.
Some innovations were developed over and over again—agriculture, civilization, calendars, pyramids, mathematics, writing, and beer were independently invented all over the world, for example.
Certain inventions may be obvious enough to emerge predictably in response to people’s needs.
But many important innovations — such as the wheel, the gunpowder, the printing press, the stirrups, the compass — seem to have been created only once, before they became widespread.
And, similarly, a handful of individuals—Steve Jobs, Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla, the Wright brothers, James Watt, Archimedes—have played an outsized role in driving our technological evolution, implying that highly creative individuals have had a huge impact. .
This suggests that the chances of getting a major technological breakthrough right are low.
Perhaps it was not inevitable that fire, spearheads, axes, beads, or bows would be discovered when they were.
Then, as now, a single individual could literally change the course of history with nothing more than an idea.
