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Scientists built their own Stone Age tools to figure out how they were used

arstechnica.com

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Re: Scientists built their own Stone Age tools to figure out how they were used

#41

Post by schoen »

WalterBright wrote: post #32
ahazred8ta wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was one fellow who smelted copper ore and tin ore, made copper wire and a vinegar battery, and made a working telegraph that could have been built any time since 3000 BC.

To make use of telegraphy, one would need to know how to read & write. The most useful inventions in history: 1. reading & writing 2. paper 3. printing press 4. computers & networking Note that they're all about preserving and sharing information.

Now I wonder whether a rhythm-based writing system could have been developed ahead of pictographic and alphabetic writing if preliterate people had had a telegraph. They might have started off developing rhythm conventions based on particular songs, or something.

I guess signal drums predate writing in many places and successfully use rhythm to convey information over long distances. I'm not sure whether any that don't encode writing have a writing-like ability to represent arbitrary messages rather than just prearranged ones.

Re: Scientists built their own Stone Age tools to figure out how they were used

#42

Post by tlavoie »

WalterBright wrote: post #32
ahazred8ta wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was one fellow who smelted copper ore and tin ore, made copper wire and a vinegar battery, and made a working telegraph that could have been built any time since 3000 BC.

To make use of telegraphy, one would need to know how to read & write. The most useful inventions in history: 1. reading & writing 2. paper 3. printing press 4. computers & networking Note that they're all about preserving and sharing information.

Related, The Information is an excellent book: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Information:_A_History,_a_...

Re: Scientists built their own Stone Age tools to figure out how they were used

#43

Post by Qwertious »

WalterBright wrote: post #32
ahazred8ta wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was one fellow who smelted copper ore and tin ore, made copper wire and a vinegar battery, and made a working telegraph that could have been built any time since 3000 BC.

To make use of telegraphy, one would need to know how to read & write. The most useful inventions in history: 1. reading & writing 2. paper 3. printing press 4. computers & networking Note that they're all about preserving and sharing information.

Weird how that list doesn't include the state, coinage, or farming. Or animal domestication. Or smelting iron. Or steam engines and machine tools.

Computers are basically irrelevant but networking would be huge - being able to communicate near-instantly across large distances was possibly the single biggest limiting factor for the size of empires in agrarian societies (other than food).

Re: Scientists built their own Stone Age tools to figure out how they were used

#44

Post by ChainOfFools »

WalterBright wrote: post #37
sillysaurusx wrote: post #11

I’ve found myself infected with a desire to have a machine shop. I don’t exactly know what I’d use it for, but there’s something so cool about making your own stuff. This fellow inherited his grandfather’s machine shop https://youtu.be/hearLttbrLo?si=r2CHxdepmhQ71xJq and used it to make… a pen. https://youtu.be/j27RKTHMLkA?si=f5OPN7ZJ10EBSZa4 And it’s an addiction I didn’t know I had. The gateway drug that led to all…

> who made a vacuum pump out of a refrigerator compressor Lex Luthor made an atomic pile out of a sand pile.

Every pile can be an atomic pile if you're really, really, REALLY patient

Re: Scientists built their own Stone Age tools to figure out how they were used

#45

Post by ekianjo »

WalterBright wrote: post #32
ahazred8ta wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was one fellow who smelted copper ore and tin ore, made copper wire and a vinegar battery, and made a working telegraph that could have been built any time since 3000 BC.

To make use of telegraphy, one would need to know how to read & write. The most useful inventions in history: 1. reading & writing 2. paper 3. printing press 4. computers & networking Note that they're all about preserving and sharing information.

you would not be able to build computers if you did not have advanced math concepts in the first place and a bunch of engineering knowhow as well.

Re: Scientists built their own Stone Age tools to figure out how they were used

#46

Post by ekianjo »

pavel_lishin wrote: post #8

Obligatory link to Primitive Technology on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@primitivetechnology9550 Although, he doesn't recreate past technology - I think he researches what technology could have existed, given the knowledge of our time. Things like his blowers, and his iron smelting processes. Of course, there's only so much you can do with rocks & sticks, so most of what he makes ends up being pretty similar to h…

also one of the very few big channels on Youtube not filled with sponsored content.

Re: Scientists built their own Stone Age tools to figure out how they were used

#47

Post by Marthinwurer »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #11

I’ve found myself infected with a desire to have a machine shop. I don’t exactly know what I’d use it for, but there’s something so cool about making your own stuff. This fellow inherited his grandfather’s machine shop https://youtu.be/hearLttbrLo?si=r2CHxdepmhQ71xJq and used it to make… a pen. https://youtu.be/j27RKTHMLkA?si=f5OPN7ZJ10EBSZa4 And it’s an addiction I didn’t know I had. The gateway drug that led to all…

You might also enjoy watching "How to Make Everything" and "Blondiehacks"

Edit: Clickspring is fantastic too, his Antikythera mechanism project is just phenomenal.

Re: Scientists built their own Stone Age tools to figure out how they were used

#48

Post by eszed »

defrost wrote: post #19
username135 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't we have small populations around the globe that still do this? Wouldnt it have neen easier to observe them?

They're not frozen in time. Spear fishing hunter gatherers, for example, are out there but they've moved on to using steel rebar for barb points over stingraytail barbs, wire wrap for binding over chewing just the right branch fibres, and iPhones over smoke signals. It's similar but not the same: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gmCX7R-W4c

Where are the iPhone using hunter gatherers? Not snark: I want to know more about them.

Re: Scientists built their own Stone Age tools to figure out how they were used

#49

Post by defrost »

eszed wrote: post #48
defrost wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're not frozen in time. Spear fishing hunter gatherers, for example, are out there but they've moved on to using steel rebar for barb points over stingraytail barbs, wire wrap for binding over chewing just the right branch fibres, and iPhones over smoke signals. It's similar but not the same: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gmCX7R-W4c

Where are the iPhone using hunter gatherers? Not snark: I want to know more about them.

Papua New Guinea, Northern Australia communities, also cattle herders in Africa.

That covers pure traditional hunter-gather | slash and burn agrarian | herding, etc as traditional lifestyles that are still mostly practiced in mostly traditional forms by some parts of communities but also supplemented with tourism, children going to school to learn law and other skills, FiFo mine work, etc.

https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-30500591

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmKxmxk6Gas

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