How old is Technology?
Humans have been using primitive tools for almost 2 MILLION YEARS. However, making objects that go slightly beyond this took a while to develop. Technology is approximately 500,000 years old.
View the following tables for each Age of Technology. Note the significant inventions that mark the end and beginning of each age.
|
Stone Age
|
|
250,000 B.C. - 2500 B.C.
|
|
Development
|
Approximate Date
|
Significance
|
|
Control of fire
|
500,000 B.C.
|
Cooking, making pottery, lighting, heat
|
|
Hand ax
|
500,000 B.C.
|
Used for hunting
|
|
Bow and arrow
|
Unknown
|
Used for hunting
|
|
Spears
|
Unknown
|
Flint rocks or bone and used for hunting and fishing
|
|
Animal oil lamps
|
Unknown
|
Lamps that burn on animal fat
|
|
Needles
|
18,000 B.C.
|
Made of bone to produce clothing
|
|
Agriculture
|
8000 B.C.
|
Humans planned the growth of plants and animals for food
|
|
Bricks
|
7000 B.C.
|
Building materials
|
|
Irrigation
|
5000 B.C.
|
Humans planned the watering of agricultural crops
|
|
Wheel
|
3500 B.C.
|
Increased human power for agriculture and transportation
|
|
Bronze Age
|
|
3000 B.C. - 1200 B.C.
|
|
Development
|
Approximate Date
|
Significance
|
|
Wooden ships
|
3000 B.C.
|
Used for trade and transportation
|
|
Pyramids
|
2700 B.C.
|
Remarkable applications of architecture and mathematics
|
|
Improved wheels
|
2000 B.C.
|
Spokes made wheels lighter, thus easier to transport goods.
|
|
Chariots
|
2000 B.C.
|
Ground transportation and military vehicles
|
|
Glass
|
2000 B.C.
|
Used for jewelry and ornaments
|
|
Casting of metals
|
1400 B.C.
|
Pouring hot metals in a mold to form shapes.
|
|
Iron Age
|
|
1200 B.C. - 500 A.D.
|
|
Development
|
Approximate Date
|
Significance
|
|
Alphabet
|
1000 B.C.
|
Important for communication and trade
|
|
Arabic Numbers
|
800 B.C.
|
Important for communication and trade
|
|
Water Wheel
|
700 B.C.
|
Grind grains such as corn
|
|
Spinning wheel
|
500 B.C.
|
Used to make yarn and thread for cloth
|
|
Great Wall of China
|
221 B.C.
|
Built to prevent invasion
|
|
Glass blowing
|
100 B.C.
|
Easier to shape glass
|
|
Calendar
|
45 B.C.
|
Important for communication, trade and agriculture
|
|
Glass
|
50 A.D.
|
First used in windows
|
|
Cement
|
400 A.D.
|
Used as a building material
|
|
Middle Ages
|
|
500 A.D. - 1450 A.D.
|
|
Development
|
Approximate Date
|
Significance
|
|
Windmills
|
600
|
Used to pump water for irrigation and milling grain
|
|
Rockets
|
1232
|
Used as a military weapon
|
|
Gunpowder
|
1242
|
First explosive with both military and building uses
|
|
Renaissance
|
|
Approximately 1450 A.D -1700 A. D.
|
|
Development
|
Approximate Date
|
Significance
|
|
Leonardo da Vinci
|
1452 – 1519
|
Designed flying machines, machine gun, turbines, etc…
|
|
Printing Press & Movable Type
|
1452
|
Improved communication through mass production of printed materials. Led to increased literacy throughout all classes.
|
|
Railroad
|
1500
|
Used in mining to transport heavy loads
|
|
Galileo
|
1596 – 1610
|
Heat measurement, laws of gravitation, observed solar system
|
|
Newton
|
1600s
|
Laws of gravitation, optics, and physics
|
|
Industrial Age
|
|
1700 - 1950
|
|
Development
|
Approximate Date
|
Significance
|
|
Factory system
|
1700's
|
Mass production of products.
|
|
Steam engine
|
1769
|
Changes steam into mechanical energy to operate machines.
|
|
Cotton gin
|
1793
|
Made cotton a profitable industry
|
|
Machine tools
|
1795
|
Made it possible to produce precision parts for manufacturing
|
|
Erie Canal
|
1825
|
New shipping routes between the Great Lakes & Atlantic Ocean
|
|
Telegraph
|
1837
|
Improved long distance communications
|
|
Transcontinental Railroad
|
1869
|
Fast, reliable transportation for people and goods
|
|
Suez Canal
|
1869
|
Shortened shipping routes between east and west Africa.
|
|
Telephone
|
1876
|
Improved communications without the use of coded messages.
|
|
Phonograph
|
1877
|
1st Audio Recording Device
|
|
Radio
|
1895
|
Long distance (transatlantic) voice communications
|
|
Airplane
|
1903
|
Greatly improved long distance transportation of people/goods
|
|
Television
|
1923
|
Mass communication. This predated the information age by date, but not on the scale we know it today.
|
|
Information Age
|
|
1950 - Present
|
|
Development
|
Approximate Date
|
Significance
|
|
Computer
|
1940s
|
Facilitates the processing & control capabilities of people.
|
|
Geodesic dome
|
1947
|
Structure of lightweight materials without reinforcing members
|
|
Transistor
|
1948
|
Smaller and more reliable than vacuum tube.
|
|
Space exploration
|
1950s
|
Responsible for countless tech. advances through research. (Spinoffs)
|
|
Integrated circuit
|
1959
|
Contains thousands of components that are cheap and efficient
|
|
Facsimile
|
1970s
|
Transmits documents over telephone lines.
|
|
Cellular telephone
|
1978
|
Mobile telephone communications.
|
|
Internet (WWW)
|
1984
|
Individual access to enormous quantities of information.
|
|
Fiber optics
|
1980s
|
Fast, frictionless communications through a glass tube.
|
|
Solar energy
|
Undefined
|
Converting energy from the sun into thermal and electrical energy.
|
|
Nuclear Power
|
1980s
|
Alternative sources of energy.
|
|
