Technology is people using knowledge, tools, and systems to make their lives easier and better. Technology improves our ability to work, communicate and make more and better products. Technology is the study of ways people develop and use tools and machines to control the natural and human-made world.

Stone Age

The first tools were made of stone. The development of stone tools occured over thousands of years and eventually resulted in such specialized tools as needles and harpoons. The main type of dwelling was a circular hut, with a sunken floor, a central hearth for both heating and cooking, and a smoke-hole in the top of the wattle-and-daub roof. The people lacked any sort of metal tools and did not practice weaving; their knives and axes were of stone and their clothing consisted of animal skins. Their primary means of subsistence was foraging and hunting. Agricultural villages had begun to develop by 8000 BCE. This is known as the Neolithic period, or New Stone Age. Stone tools became highly polished and varied. By 6000 BCE pottery appeared in the ancient Middle East, and copper was used for the first time in some regions.

Bronze Age

Bronze is an alloy of copper and tin. Discoveries near Ban Chiang, Thailand, indicate that bronze technology was known there as early as 4500 BCE. During the second millennium BCE regular imports of tin from Cornwall in Britain made possible wider use of bronze in the Middle East and it was eventually utilized for tools and weapons. Sumerian civilization, the rise of Akkad to prominence in Mesopotamia and the spectacular treasures of Troy were the early Bronze Age. Metalsmiths of Sumer, Babylon, and Egypt were highly prized members of their society, who transmitted their secrets to their children. Often, they were not free, owing their obedience and livelihood to temple priests and authorities. They were so valuable that invading armies made a special effort to carry them off in captivity. Their guilds may have been the first trade unions in history. During the Bronze Age there were new kinds of settlements, increased skill in metalworking, expanding trade networks, and a shift towards settled agriculture from semi-nomadic pastoralism. Babylon reached its height of glory during the middle Bronze Age. Minoan Crete and Mycenaean Greece were major civilizations of the late Bronze Age.

Iron Age

Between 1200 and 500 BCE iron came into general use, replacing bronze as the basic material for implements and weapons. Furnaces were developed that could reach the high melting temperature of that metal. Early steels were discovered by adding small amounts of carbon to iron as it was hammered over a charcoal fire.

Industrial Revolution

Between 1750 and 1830, the rapid pace of innovations in technology transformed Great Britain from a largely rural population making a living almost entirely from agriculture to a town centered society engaged increasingly in factory manufacture. The first factories appeared in 1740, concentrating on textile production. From the 1790s to the 1830s, more than 100,000 power looms with 9,330,000 spindles were put into service in England and Scotland. In some countries this transformation is only now taking place or still lies in the future.