Rope, twine and thread: Invisible technologies of the Stone Age
knowablemagazine.org
Rope, twine and thread: Invisible technologies of the Stone Age
1–10 of 50 posts
Re: Rope, twine and thread: Invisible technologies of the Stone Age
#2Not mentioned in TFA: cordage is a critical component in slings, an early, powerful ranged weapon.
With some sort of pulley, rope allows a single human to excert large amounts of force trough leverage, often in ways more convenient than other forms of mechanical leverage. (Such as actual levers.)
Rope can also be used for 1:1 power transfer.
Re: Rope, twine and thread: Invisible technologies of the Stone Age
#3We tend to picture prehistoric technology as a progression of increasingly clever stone tools because stone is what survives, but rope may have been closer to infrastructure
Re: Rope, twine and thread: Invisible technologies of the Stone Age
#4Not mentioned in TFA: cordage is a critical component in slings, an early, powerful ranged weapon. With some sort of pulley, rope allows a single human to excert large amounts of force trough leverage, often in ways more convenient than other forms of mechanical leverage. (Such as actual levers.) Rope can also be used for 1:1 power transfer.
This really reinforces the idea that cordage was less a single invention than a general-purpose mechanical primitive
Re: Rope, twine and thread: Invisible technologies of the Stone Age
#5We tend to picture prehistoric technology as a progression of increasingly clever stone tools because stone is what survives, but rope may have been closer to infrastructure
Stone age peoples still existed until fairly recently in Africa and Australia, so stone age technology isn't prehistoric at all. What's prehistoric is stone age technology from other parts of the world.
Re: Rope, twine and thread: Invisible technologies of the Stone Age
#6There are certain bodies of human knowledge and practice which aren't usually referred to as "technologies", and I think that leads us to underestimate their complexity and importance.
In particular, I'm thinking of textiles and agriculture. It's no coincidence that both were prime targets of industrial mechanization, occupying a huge proportion of all human labor.
Re: Rope, twine and thread: Invisible technologies of the Stone Age
#7There are certain bodies of human knowledge and practice which aren't usually referred to as "technologies", and I think that leads us to underestimate their complexity and importance. In particular, I'm thinking of textiles and agriculture. It's no coincidence that both were prime targets of industrial mechanization, occupying a huge proportion of all human labor.
You don’t have to be a scholar in gender studies to wonder why textile has been a bit overlooked when looking back at human development.
Re: Rope, twine and thread: Invisible technologies of the Stone Age
#8With just wood and rope they could probably accomplish amazing things. I'm convinced on a personal level that stone age people had cranes to lift boulders with.
Re: Rope, twine and thread: Invisible technologies of the Stone Age
#9There are certain bodies of human knowledge and practice which aren't usually referred to as "technologies", and I think that leads us to underestimate their complexity and importance. In particular, I'm thinking of textiles and agriculture. It's no coincidence that both were prime targets of industrial mechanization, occupying a huge proportion of all human labor.
Who is underestimating the importance of food and clothes in history? Certainly not the historians. Agricultural output is literally what made and broke empires.
Re: Rope, twine and thread: Invisible technologies of the Stone Age
#10With just wood and rope they could probably accomplish amazing things. I'm convinced on a personal level that stone age people had cranes to lift boulders with.
Stone age when? 40,000 years ago or 4,000 years ago? Göbekli Tepe is from a mere 11,000 years ago. I mean cranes for ziggurats, sure. Cranes for megaliths I dunno about. Maybe you just got a lot of beefy men to push the giant rock into an upright position, maybe brute force was the point. Giving them simple machines is a slippery slope (which is itself a more plausible paleolithic/neolithic technology) to a kind of paleo-punk where you retrofit them with Flintstones cars and apartment buildings and production line belts, all made from hide and rope and mammoth grease.