1 What are the most important ideas in pages 12 26 of the online text for this course The main ideas of this reading started with early tool making The people in the early stone age figured out the rather than using round rocks to accomplish tasks they could chip pieces of flint and lava to make sharp edges on them This was a massive step in technology because it was the foundation for most hand tools that came after them The next topic was about the two elements that govern mans technological progress These are discovery and invention These are closely related because before one can invent something they must discover or observe certain things that would provoke the thought to invent a way of doing it better The books claims that fire was mans first conquest Fire was discovered to be cause by striking certain rocks together to create sparks as well as by high friction I feel that this discovery is probably the most important one in history as most technology currently can be traced back to a power source that runs by burning or heating something Mining was also another important discovery as it allowed greater amounts of minerals and stone to be collected for the communities at the time Mining is still a vital part of the US economy so this was a technological advance that would last The domestication of animals allowed the early peoples to breed them so that their resources and uses would be available in large amounts Domestication of the horse and donkey provided a mode of transportation that was widely used until the introduction of trains and cars Writing was the last major topic in the reading It enabled information to be recorded and passed down through the generations This is the main way we now know of ancient history 2 After watching the Stories from the Stone Age video discuss the role that technology played in the development of agriculture communities society and trade Technology had a huge part in the development of ancient societies The first main effect of technology advancements was advanced agriculture Before the ancient people figured out that certain climates combined with planted seeds produce crops they were mainly hunters and gatherers Once they figured out that planting food was effective it enabled them to stay in one area because their food source was more reliable This meant that larger groups of people began to stay together in one area These communities developed better tools and faster ways of working crops which lead to them being very successful These successes would give the community a purpose to develop their technology to be more successful with agriculture When a community was large enough the natural action was to appoint a leader to guide the community towards being successful This was representative of many of the societies that came after Under the guidance of a leader these successful societies would learn that trading with other societies was profitable for both sides and as a result a network of trade routes sprang up over Mesopotamia These societies would become closely knit in the Fertile Crescent and they paved the way for future societies to be successful 3 Explore the A Walk Through Time website and write about what you find there How has our concept of time changed over time How does our society view time today Our concept of time has changed dramatically over time In the beginning the ancient peoples had no notion of exact time they probably just woke up when the sun came up and sept when it went down Once they discovered astrology they could more accurately determine when astrological events would happen Sundials were the next way of telling time as they let you know what time of day it was This was moderately inaccurate over a year because of the shifting sun but eventually more accurate ones were developed Following this was the clock as we know it with gears and springs which were fairly accurate Finally we now have digital watched and a universal time system that lets you know what the correct setting is for your time zone I think that in the past the people were pretty relaxed in their view of time Whereas now every minute of our lives are planned down to the minute This means we may get more accomplished but stress is definitely higher Another interesting point is how the calendar has changed It has been constantly updated through history to account for a full lunar year Then leap year was added to line up the calendar with the lunar year Our current calendar therefore is the summation of all the previous ones It is interesting how society s view of time changes and the technology becomes better