Ancient technology

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• Ancient technology
• Paleolithic, Neolithic, Classical, Dark Ages
• Useful and impressive ancient technology-
  Tools, Olduvan, Acheulian, Mousterian
• - Monoliths
• Useful and non-useful?
• Here are some things to consider for your journal
  entries 1. you might make a little time line
  that shows the time of the Olduvan, Acheulean and
  Mousterian tools discussed in the text, then
  includes the Egyptians, Stonehenge and the
  Romans. 2. the Tikal corbelled arches were made
  more than 1000 years after the Roman arches. What
  does that signify? 3. What do you think the
  flute and art work mean? These people were
  desperately trying to find food and survive in a
  wild environment with almost no technology to
  help them why should they waste their time in
  music and art? Bryson points out that the
  Neandertals led a very difficulty existence, and
  probably died at an average age of about 30. 4.
  How rapidly did the ancient humans pass on their
  knowledge and improve their technology?
• You have to do a project Here are some topics
  that immediately come to mind from this first set
  of information 1. several students suggested
  that the pyramids have some technology that even
  modern humans cant match. Is that true, or is it
  just folklore? Are the pyramids anything more
  than just a big pile of stones? 2. whats the
  difference between the different kinds of stone
  tools? 3. Are Neandertals us? What is a
  Neandertal anyway? 4. Is the multiregional
  explanation of human origins a racist philosophy?
  5. How do you make a rock tool? 6. Neoltihic
  Cave art. 7. what can we say with certainty
  (that is, what are the facts?) about prehistoric
  humans?
• It would be bad if you were to come to class next
  time and you did not know what Neandertal,
  Neolithic or Cro Magnon meant. Do the readings.

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Link to web page of Dr McConeghys notebook
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How we tend to think about the world today or
perhaps Americans would put even much greater
emphasis on the USA.
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Although it was drawn with a different purpose in
mind, I think this map can be used to illustrate
the parts of the world according to their human
significance about 4000 or 5000 years ago
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Olduvan tools from East Africa replicate tools
of about 1 million years ago
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Mousterian (Neandertal and Cro-Magnon) tools
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Acheulian tools the larger axe is from
Olorgesailie in Kenya and the smaller blade is
from St Acheul in France.
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Late Paleolithic blade (Solutrean)
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A movie at YouTube demonstrating flint knapping
is at http//www.youtube.com/watch?vnyuzh1uaSf4
A movie in Microsoft Encarta which demonstrates
flint-knapping (making blades from a flint stone)
is at http//encarta.msn.com/media_461542218_7615
66394_-1_1_BB/media.html
Decatur style spear point by modern flint knapper
Woody Blackwell
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Olduvan (from Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania) 2,000
thousand to 1,000 thousand years ago. Acheulean
(named after a site in France St. Acheul)
stonetools of prehistoric hominids Homo erectus
and early Homo sapiens and Homo neanderthalis.
From 1200 thousand years ago to 500 thousand
years ago, up to 100 thousand years ago in
isolated areas. Mousterian (named after Le
Mouster in France) stonetools of Homo
neanderthalis of from about 300 thousand years
ago to 30,000 years ago in Europe, and also Homo
sapiens in the Mediterranean area. Neolithic
(new stone) age. Neolithic implies advanced
stone tool working, agriculture involving grains
such as wheat, barley and millet and rice in
Asia, pottery and weaving, This cultural level
existed by about 10,000 years ago and was
widespread around the world during subsequent
milenia.
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It is very difficult to show a scale model of
human history, because the first parts of the
graphic are so long and the recent parts so
short. Here is one attempt, though Geologic
Time (NC Museum of Natural Sciences)
http//www.naturalsciences.org/funstuff/paleo/time
line.html Heres another attempt
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TimeLine of Human Activities 2.5 million years
at a scale of 2 meters per million years 5
meters 250,000 years _______________
meters 25,000 years ________________
meters 2,500 years ________________ meters
( ______ cm) ( ______ mm) 2.5m BP
Olduvan tools 250,000 BP Olduvan/Acheulean
tools, fire 25,000 BP Acheulean/ Mousterian
tools, fire, clothing 2,500 BP Acheulean/Mousteria
n tools, metal working, agriculture, seafaring,
pottery, architecture brewing, weaving,
domestic animals, fashion, writing, literature,
accounting, legal codes,
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Chauvet Cave, France, 30,000 BP
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The Cosquer Cave at Cape Morgiou near Marseilles,
France were explored just a few years ago.
French archeologists hypothesized that if sea
levels were lower in ancient times, then
neolithic people could have entered caves now
covered by the sea. When they explored caves
along the Mediteranean coast, they did indeed
find caves where the cave entrance is now 40
meters below the surface of the sea, but which
have paintings in them drawn by Neolithic artists
between 27,000 to 19,000 years ago -- very
strong proof that in human history during the
Ice Ages - the surface of the sea was
substantially below the current level.
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Cosquer Cave 18,500 BP
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Chauvet Cave hand stencil of about 30,000 BP
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Stenciled hands at Cosquer Cave. Dated at 27,000
BP.
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Hill town in Mesopotamia Before 7000
BP Restoration farm buildings at site of
Neolithic Farm in Britain
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Avebury Silbury about 4500 years BP near
Stonehenge
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Cromlechs or menhirs are the remains of ancient
burial chambers. These structures were erected,
then covered with a large mound of dirt and
stones to conceal the burial within. (Left
Wales Right Ireland) circa 5000BC
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Left, the lower round tower is a neolithic
structure in the city commonly associated with
the Biblical name Jericho. The picture on the
right is a reconstruction of the appearance of
the town of Catalhoyuk, in Turkey, 7000BC.
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RISD Museum Providence RI
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The pyramids of Giza in Egypt were built in the
reigns of Pharoahs who lived about 4500 years
ago. There are about 80 surviving pyramids in
Egypt, of which these are the three largest.
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RISD Museum Providence RI
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Herodotus History Book II125-128 Till the death
of Rhampsinitus, the priests said, Egypt was
excellently governed, and flourished greatly but
after him Cheops succeeded to the throne, and
plunged into all manner of wickedness. He closed
the temples, and forbade the Egyptians to offer
sacrifice, compelling them instead to labor, one
and all, in his service. Some were required to
drag blocks of stone down to the Nile from the
quarries in the Arabian range of hills others
received the blocks after they had been conveyed
in boats across the river, and drew them to the
range of hills called the Libyan. A hundred
thousand men labored constantly, and were
relieved every three months by a fresh lot. It
took ten years' oppression of the people to make
the causeway for the conveyance of the stones, a
work not much inferior, in my judgment, to the
pyramid itself. This causeway is five furlongs in
length, ten fathoms wide, and in height, at the
highest part, eight fathoms. It is built of
polished stone, and is covered with carvings of
animals. To make it took ten years, as I said- or
rather to make the causeway, the works on the
mound where the pyramid stands, and the
underground chambers, which Cheops intended as
vaults for his own use these last were built on
a sort of island, surrounded by water introduced
from the Nile by a canal.
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Herodotus (continued) The pyramid itself was
twenty years in building. It is a square, eight
hundred feet each way, and the height the same,
built entirely of polished stone, fitted together
with the utmost care. The stones of which it is
composed are none of them less than thirty feet
in length. The pyramid was built in steps,
battlement-wise, as it is called, or, according
to others, altar-wise. After laying the stones
for the base, they raised the remaining stones to
their places by means of machines formed of short
wooden planks. The first machine raised them from
the ground to the top of the first step. On this
there was another machine, which received the
stone upon its arrival, and conveyed it to the
second step, whence a third machine advanced it
still higher. Either they had as many machines as
there were steps in the pyramid, or possibly they
had but a single machine, which, being easily
moved, was transferred from tier to tier as the
stone rose- both accounts are given, and
therefore I mention both. The upper portion of
the pyramid was finished first, then the middle,
and finally the part which was lowest and nearest
the ground.
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Herodotus History (continued) The wickedness of
Cheops reached to such a pitch that, when he had
spent all his treasures and wanted more, he sent
his daughter to the brothel, with orders to
procure him a certain sum- how much I cannot say,
for I was not told she procured it, however, and
at the same time, bent on leaving a monument
which should perpetuate her own memory, she
required each man to make her a present of a
stone towards the works which she contemplated.
With these stones she built the pyramid which
stands midmost of the three that are in front of
the great pyramid, measuring along each side a
hundred and fifty feet. Cheops reigned, the
Egyptians said, fifty years, and was succeeded at
his demise by Chephren, his brother. Chephren
imitated the conduct of his predecessor, and,
like him, built a pyramid, which did not,
however, equal the dimensions of his brother's.
Of this I am certain, for I measured them both
myself. It has no subterraneous apartments, nor
any canal from the Nile to supply it with water,
as the other pyramid has. In that, the Nile
water, introduced through an artificial duct,
surrounds an island, where the body of Cheops is
said to lie..
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Herodotus (continued) There is an inscription in
Egyptian characters on the pyramid which records
the quantity of radishes, onions, and garlic
consumed by the labourers who constructed it and
I perfectly well remember that the interpreter
who read the writing to me said that the money
expended in this way was 1600 talents of silver.
If this then is a true record, what a vast sum
must have been spent on the iron tools used in
the work, and on the feeding and clothing of the
labourers, considering the length of time the
work lasted, which has already been stated, and
the additional time- no small space, I imagine-
which must have been occupied by the quarrying of
the stones, their conveyance, and the formation
of the underground apartments.
Note that when Herodotus visited the pyramids,
they were already over 2000 years old.
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This is a commemorative scarab. It is like a
little newsflash the hieroglyphs record the
Pharaohs recent successful lion hunt (in 1360
BCE or so.) RISD Museum
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Stonehenge, constructed and altered between 5000
BP to 3000 BP
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Roman Bath in a Classical site in Turkey. The
arches supported a warm bath heated by fires
built under the arches
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Interior room of Tikal Temple complex.
Corbelled arch (not a true arch) About 1200 BP
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Tikal, Mayan Temple/Pyramid - circa 1200 BP