Editing Technology (section)

===Prehistoric===
{{main|Prehistoric technology}}
[[File:Faustkeil Nachbau, 2020 PD a-7.jpg|thumb|A person holding a [[hand axe]]|alt=refer to caption]]
Tools were initially developed by [[hominids]] through observation and [[trial and error]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Schiffer |first=M. B. |title=The Archaeology of Science |chapter=Discovery Processes: Trial Models |year=2013 |chapter-url=https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-00077-0_13 |series=Manuals in Archaeological Method, Theory and Technique |volume=9 |pages=185–198 |place=Heidelberg |publisher=Springer International Publishing |doi=10.1007/978-3-319-00077-0_13 |isbn=978-3319000770 |access-date=11 September 2022 |archive-date=4 October 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221004184259/https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-00077-0_13 |url-status=live }}</ref> Around 2 [[Year#Abbreviations yr and ya|Mya]] (million years ago), they learned to make the first stone tools by hammering flakes off a pebble, forming a sharp [[hand axe]].<ref name=":3">{{Cite web |author=The British Museum |title=Our earliest technology? |url=https://smarthistory.org/our-earliest-technology/#:~:text=Made%20nearly%20two%20million%20years,deposits%20in%20Olduvai%20Gorge,%20Tanzania. |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220902015829/https://smarthistory.org/our-earliest-technology/#:~:text=Made%20nearly%20two%20million%20years,deposits%20in%20Olduvai%20Gorge,%20Tanzania. |archive-date=2 September 2022 |access-date=2 September 2022 |website=smarthistory.org}}</ref> This practice was refined 75 kya (thousand years ago) into [[pressure flaking]], enabling much finer work.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Minogue |first=K. |date=28 October 2010 |title=Stone Age Toolmakers Surprisingly Sophisticated |url=https://www.science.org/content/article/stone-age-toolmakers-surprisingly-sophisticated |url-status=live |access-date=10 September 2022 |website=science.org |archive-date=10 September 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220910174555/https://www.science.org/content/article/stone-age-toolmakers-surprisingly-sophisticated }}</ref>

The [[discovery of fire]] was described by [[Charles Darwin]] as "possibly the greatest ever made by man".<ref>{{cite book | last=Crump | first=Thomas | title=A Brief History of Science | year=2001 | publisher=[[Constable & Robinson]] | isbn=978-1841192352 | page=9}}</ref> Archaeological, dietary, and social evidence point to "continuous [human] fire-use" at least 1.5 Mya.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Gowlett |first1=J. A. J. |last2=Wrangham |first2=R. W. |date=1 March 2013 |title=Earliest fire in Africa: towards the convergence of archaeological evidence and the cooking hypothesis |url=https://doi.org/10.1080/0067270X.2012.756754 |journal=Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa |volume=48 |issue=1 |pages=5–30 |doi=10.1080/0067270X.2012.756754 |s2cid=163033909 |issn=0067-270X|url-access=subscription }}</ref> Fire, fueled with wood and [[charcoal]], allowed early humans to cook their food to increase its digestibility, improving its nutrient value and broadening the number of foods that could be eaten.<ref>{{cite journal | last=Stahl | first= Ann B. | author-link= Ann B. Stahl | year=1984 | title=Hominid dietary selection before fire | journal=[[Current Anthropology]] | volume=25 | pages= 151–68 | doi=10.1086/203106 | issue=2 | jstor=2742818| s2cid= 84337150 }}</ref> The ''[[Control of fire by early humans#The cooking hypothesis|cooking hypothesis]]'' proposes that the ability to cook promoted an increase in hominid [[brain size]], though some researchers find the evidence inconclusive.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Wrangham |first=R. |date=1 August 2017 |title=Control of Fire in the Paleolithic: Evaluating the Cooking Hypothesis |url=https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/692113 |journal=Current Anthropology |volume=58 |issue=S16 |pages=S303–S313 |doi=10.1086/692113 |s2cid=148798286 |issn=0011-3204 |access-date=10 September 2022 |archive-date=10 September 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220910190830/https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/692113 |url-status=live |url-access=subscription }}</ref> Archaeological evidence of [[hearth]]s was dated to 790 kya; researchers believe this is likely to have intensified human [[socialization]] and may have contributed to the emergence of [[language]].<ref name=worldcat1124046527>{{Cite book |last= |first= |url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/1124046527 |title=Lucy to Language: the Benchmark Papers |year=2014 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0199652594 |editor-last=Dunbar |editor-first=R. I. M. |oclc=1124046527 |editor-last2=Gamble |editor-first2=C. |editor-last3=Gowlett |editor-first3=J. A. J. |access-date=10 September 2022 |archive-date=14 August 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200814044201/http://worldcat.org/oclc/1124046527 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name=20030715nytimes-science>{{Cite news |last=Wade |first=Nicholas |date=15 July 2003 |title=Early Voices: The Leap to Language |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/15/science/early-voices-the-leap-to-language.html |url-status=live |access-date=7 November 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170312091336/http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/15/science/early-voices-the-leap-to-language.html |archive-date=12 March 2017 }}</ref>

Other technological advances made during the Paleolithic era include clothing and shelter.<ref name=":4">{{Cite journal |last1=Shaar |first1=Ron |last2=Matmon |first2=Ari |last3=Horwitz |first3=Liora K. |last4=Ebert |first4=Yael |last5=Chazan |first5=Michael |last6=Arnold |first6=M. |last7=Aumaître |first7=G. |last8=Bourlès |first8=D. |last9=Keddadouche |first9=K. |date=1 May 2021 |title=Magnetostratigraphy and cosmogenic dating of Wonderwerk Cave: New constraints for the chronology of the South African Earlier Stone Age |url=https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277379121001141 |journal=Quaternary Science Reviews |volume=259 |page=106907 |doi=10.1016/j.quascirev.2021.106907 |bibcode=2021QSRv..25906907S |s2cid=234833092 |issn=0277-3791 |archive-date=16 January 2024 |access-date=10 September 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240116020317/https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277379121001141 |url-status=live |url-access=subscription }}</ref> No consensus exists on the approximate time of adoption of either technology, but archaeologists have found archaeological evidence of clothing 90-120 kya<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Hallett |first1=Emily Y. |last2=Marean |first2=Curtis W. |last3=Steele |first3=Teresa E. |last4=Álvarez-Fernández |first4=Esteban |last5=Jacobs |first5=Zenobia |author5-link=Zenobia Jacobs |last6=Cerasoni |first6=Jacopo Niccolò |last7=Aldeias |first7=Vera |last8=Scerri |first8=Eleanor M. L. |last9=Olszewski |first9=Deborah I. |last10=Hajraoui |first10=Mohamed Abdeljalil El |last11=Dibble |first11=Harold L. |date=24 September 2021 |title=A worked bone assemblage from 120,000–90,000 year old deposits at Contrebandiers Cave, Atlantic Coast, Morocco |journal=iScience  |volume=24 |issue=9 |page=102988 |doi=10.1016/j.isci.2021.102988 |issn=2589-0042 |pmc=8478944 |pmid=34622180|bibcode=2021iSci...24j2988H }}</ref> and shelter 450 kya.<ref name=":4" /> As the Paleolithic era progressed, dwellings became more sophisticated and more elaborate; as early as 380 kya, humans were constructing temporary wood huts.<ref>{{cite web |author=O'Neil, Dennis |title=Evolution of Modern Humans: Archaic Homo sapiens Culture |url=http://anthro.palomar.edu/homo2/mod_homo_3.htm |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070404130017/http://anthro.palomar.edu/homo2/mod_homo_3.htm |archive-date=4 April 2007 |access-date=31 March 2007 |publisher=[[Palomar College]] }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Villa |first=Paola |title=Terra Amata and the Middle Pleistocene archaeological record of southern France |publisher=[[University of California Press]] |year=1983 |isbn=978-0520096622 |location=[[Berkeley, California|Berkeley]] |page=303}}</ref> Clothing, adapted from the fur and hides of hunted animals, helped humanity expand into colder regions; humans began to [[Early human migrations|migrate]] out of Africa around 200 kya, initially moving to [[Eurasia]].<ref>{{cite journal |last=Cordaux |first=Richard |author2=Stoneking, Mark |year=2003 |title=South Asia, the Andamanese, and the Genetic Evidence for an 'Early' Human Dispersal out of Africa |url=http://site.voila.fr/rcordaux/pdfs/04.pdf |url-status=live |journal=[[American Journal of Human Genetics]] |volume=72 |issue=6 |pages=1586–1590; author reply 1590–93 |doi=10.1086/375407 |pmc=1180321 |pmid=12817589 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091001022940/http://site.voila.fr/rcordaux/pdfs/04.pdf |archive-date=1 October 2009 |access-date=22 May 2007 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title='Oldest remains' outside Africa reset human migration clock |url=https://phys.org/news/2019-07-oldest-africa-reset-human-migration.html |access-date=10 September 2022 |website=phys.org  |archive-date=11 July 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190711124429/https://phys.org/news/2019-07-oldest-africa-reset-human-migration.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal | last1=Harvati | first1=Katerina | author-link=Katerina Harvati | last2=Röding | first2=Carolin | last3=Bosman | first3=Abel M. | last4=Karakostis | first4=Fotios A. | last5=Grün | first5=Rainer | last6=Stringer | first6=Chris | last7=Karkanas | first7=Panagiotis | last8=Thompson | first8=Nicholas C. | last9=Koutoulidis | first9=Vassilis | last10=Moulopoulos | first10=Lia A. | last11=Gorgoulis | first11=Vassilis G. | last12=Kouloukoussa | first12=Mirsini | title=Apidima Cave fossils provide earliest evidence of Homo sapiens in Eurasia | journal=Nature | publisher=Springer Science and Business Media LLC | volume=571 | issue=7766 | year=2019 | issn=0028-0836 | doi=10.1038/s41586-019-1376-z | pages=500–504 | pmid=31292546 | hdl=10072/397334 | s2cid=195873640 | url=https://zenodo.org/record/6646855 | access-date=17 September 2022 | archive-date=1 August 2022 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220801132212/https://zenodo.org/record/6646855 | url-status=live }}</ref>