Technology Change Association With Agriculture
Surprisingly, the shift to an agricultural way of life
was not very dependent on new technology. Early farmers used techniques
and tools which had long been familiar to hunter-gatherers. The stone axe,
hoe, sickle, milling stones were already being used as people exploited
plant materials more and more. 
Profound cultural rather than technological changes were necessary at first to permit adaptation to the new mode of life. But once the shift had occurred, ever more changes, both cultural and technological, became possible.
To agriculturalists, survival is dependent upon getting the seeds to sprout and grow in the soil. There task is relatively simple. Yet it involved hard work. Originally fields were cleared of weeds and prepared for planting by hand at great effort, using primitive hoes or digging sticks. The invention of the scratch plow in Mesopotamia about 6,000 years ago was a great labor-saving device for early farmers. It also marked a revolutionary stage in human development where man began a systematic substitution of other forms of energy, in this case animal power, for human muscles.
The techniques for gathering or harvest in
cereal crops, shown in a tomb painting from Egypt remind us how precious
a commodity grain was to early civilizations. Grain was dearly bought with
human sweat and diligence. Most cultures quite naturally came to associate
the main crops that sustained their existence with the substance of life
itself, either worshipping those plants or seeing them as symbols of the
power of life. To a Hopi in the American Southwest, corn (maize) is life.
Corn becomes the essential element by which to not only eat but symbolizes
life itself to Hopi.
At the right, a kind of sled is being pulled
by oxen over the harvested grain to separate the hard, compact seeds from
the unusable plant material of the hulls and stalks of the wheat. Sometimes
this threshing of the grain is achieved by flailing piles of grain
with a club or by treading on it. A man also seen winnowing the threshed
grain by tossing it into the air with a shovel: gravity returns the heavier
grains to the pile at his feet while a breeze separates the light chaff
and blows it away.
The efforts of labor extended beyond planting and harvesting.
To live by exploiting grain crops, humans must process the
grain before it can be eaten. Human teeth, jaws, and digestive tract are
simply not adapted for this kind of diet. The typically human solution to
this problem is, however, not to evolve biologically, but to find cultural
or technical solutions to problems: in this case, to develop the knowledge
and techniques for processing grain.
One early and universal technique of transforming grain into food is to mill the seeds slightly between two stones and then to boil the grain in water, making a kind of gruel. If ground into coarse meal, boiling in water will produce something like the oatmeal we still eat at breakfast. If ground fine and mixed with water into a paste and then baked, the grain is transformed into bread. The yeast cultures which leaven some forms of bread are naturally occuring, but were regarded as magical prior to the relatively recent discovery of micro-organisms.
If stored grain gets wet and begins to sprout, the stored carbohydrates in the seed begin converting into sugar. While the grain is spoiled for bread-making, it can still be consumed if treated in another process called fermentation. The sprouted grain is first baked, ground into a paste (called malt), and then added to water. With the right yeast and little luck, the result is beer, another of the food inventions of early Mesopotamian agriculturalists. Some archaeologists even believe that making beer was one of the driving forces behind domestication of wheat and barley. Large vats for storage of beer have been found in early Sumerian cities.
Another advantage of sedentary life is the
ability to use heavy and breakable--but none the less very useful--household
objects made of baked clay. Hunter- gatherers have no use for pottery because
they have to carry their possessions with them when they move. Agriculturalists,
in contrast, can accumulate such objects--and put them to multiple uses.
This discovery was made many times by human communities all over the globe,
and seems to have occurred almost as soon as they settled down in one place.
In the photo above, an Egyptian woman
fashions a bowl out of rings of clay-- probably the oldest way of making
pottery. At right, an Egyptian craftsman fashions a large container using
the next level of technological development--a potter's wheel, which he
moves with his foot. Technology as basic as the potter's wheel allowed early
humans to enjoy the first fruits of mass production.
The wheel may have first been developed--invented--for these purposes rather than for use in vehicles. In any case, the settled mode of life led to many new discoveries out of which elaborate technologies eventually developed.
Agricultural societies world-wide have discovered that "baking" clay in extremely hot fires for a long period creates hard, durable objects such as the plates, jugs, and pots above. These examples are from 'Ubaid' culture in Mesopotamia, one of the earliest pottery-making societies.
Another step in a sequence of technological development was the modification
of the pottery kiln into a furnace capable of melting metal ores.
Note that the earliest forms of furnaces for smelting ores retain the form
of the mud oven. Over time, smelting ores became a highly refined technology
and furnaces evolved into new forms.
The discovery of techniques for turning plant and animal fibers into cloth
represented a revolutionary improvement in the quality of human life. Weaving
may have preceded agriculture, as it grew naturally out of basketry and
the weaving of reed mats. Life in sedentary agricultural villages permitted
the refinement of ancient techniques and the adoption of more complex looms.
One of the most important contributes that stemmed from
the agricultural revolution was the 
invention
of writing. As commercial activities increased as trade became more and
more important, there was a need to record trade activities. As a result,
Mesopotamians began to use clay tokens to keep track of economic exchange
values. Later, this rather cumbersome mechanism was replaced by written
symbols in clay tablets. With time, Mesopotamian scribes began to write
down everything on these clay tablets as a record of life emerged.
Native American Technology and Art