This document provides an overview of science and technology development during prehistoric times from the Stone Age to the Iron Age. It describes how early humans discovered tools like stone tools during different Stone Age periods (Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the four fundamental stone tool traditions that developed. It then discusses the Oldowan, Acheulean, Mousterian, Aurignacian, microlithic, Neolithic, Chalcolithic, Bronze Age and Iron Age tool technologies and how tools evolved over time from basic stone tools to the use of copper, bronze and eventually iron.

1. SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND
SOCIETY
ERWIN MARLON R. SARIO
INSTRUCTOR
S.Y. 2021-2022 2ND SEMESTER 1ST WAVE
FILIPINO1-A
FILIPINO1-B
SOCIAL STUDIES 1-B

2. THE DAWN OF THE FIRST
CIVILIZATIONS
Ancient humans were able to
discover and invent tools and
methods as science developed and
progressed. With the availability of
new scientific instruments and
techniques, archelogy excavation
has provided us with data and
evidence. Facts have been
unearthed and revealed that even
during a primitive time, people have
developed skills and technologies
which served and supplied their
survival needs.
Mohenjo-daro: An ancient settlement of ancient civilization
Mohenjo-daro, Province of Sindh, Pakistan

3. Evidence of Science and Technology
during Prehistoric Times 5000-3000
B.C.
Stone Age: This period was marked by
which stone was widely used to make tools
and implements. Dated roughly 3.4 million
years ago, and in about 8000 B.C.
• Paleolithic Period (Early)
• Mesolithic Period (Middle)
• Neolithic Period (New)
The era of Australopithecus and
Paranthropus were contemporaneous with
the evolution of the genus Homo.

4. The Four Fundamental Traditions
developed by Paleolithic Ancestors
• Peeble-Tool Tradition
• Bifacial-Tool or Hand-ax Tradition
• Flake-Tool Tradition
• Blade-Tool Tradition
Peeble-tool
Bifacial-tool
Flake-tool
Blade-tool

5. Oldowan Toolkit The oldest formally recognized stone tool
assemblage in the world is Oldowan. This tradition of
making simple flakes struck off unmodified cores began
during the Lower Paleolithic period in Africa. The Oldowan
stone tool industry was first defined from examples
excavated from bed I and bed II at Olduvai Gorge in
Tanzania. Paleoanthropologist refer to Homo habilis as the
maker of these tools because they appear in the fossil
record about the same time or a little later than the
earliest Oldowan tools. But there were also several other
hominid species living at the same time on Oldowan sites
in Africa. So it's a complicated issue as to which one or
ones were making the tools.

6. Acheulean Toolkit: The early Homo erectus
also used what could be described as
advanced or evolved Oldowan tool making
techniques. By 1.8 million years ago, the skills
of some Homo erectus had increased to the
point that they were making more
sophisticated stone implements with sharper
and straighter edges. Their tool kits were
sufficiently advanced by 1.5 million years ago
to consider them to be a new tool making
tradition now referred to as Acheulean.
However, the Acheulean tool making tradition
was first developed in East Africa. Perhaps,
the most important of the Acheulean tools
were hand axes. They are rock cores or very
large flakes that have been systematically
worked by percussion flaking to an elongated
oval shape with one pointed end and sharp
edges on the sides.

7. Mousterian Tools: the Acheulean in Europe was
replaced by a lithic technology known as the
Mousterian Industry, which was named after
the site of Le Moustier in France, where
examples were first uncovered in the 1860s.
Evolving from the Acheulean, it adopted the
Levallois technique to produce smaller and
sharper knife-like tools as well as scrapers. Also
known as the "prepared core technique," flakes
are struck from worked cores and then
subsequently retouched. The Mousterian
Industry was developed and used primarily by
the Neanderthals, a native European and
Middle Eastern hominin species, but a broadly
similar industry is contemporaneously
widespread in Africa.

8. The Aurignacian Tools: The widespread use of
long blades (rather than flakes) of the Upper
Paleolithic Mode 4 industries appeared during
the Upper Paleolithic between 50,000 and
10,000 years ago, although blades were
produced in small quantities much earlier by
Neanderthals. The Aurignacian culture seems
to have been the first to rely largely on blades.
The use of blades exponentially increases the
efficiency of core usage compared to the
Levallois flake technique, which had a similar
advantage over Acheulean technology which
was worked from cores.

9. Microlithic Tools: which were used in
composite tools, mainly fastened to a
shaft. Examples include
the Magdalenian culture. Such a
technology makes much more
efficient use of available materials like
flint, although required greater skill in
manufacturing the small flakes.
Mounting sharp flint edges in a wood
or bone handle is the key innovation
in microliths, essentially because the
handle gives the user protection
against the flint and also improves
leverage of the device.

10. Neolithic Tools: large axes were
made from flint nodules by
knapping a rough shape, a so-called
"rough-out". Such products were
traded across a wide area. The
rough-outs were then polished to
give the surface a fine finish to
create the axe head. Polishing not
only increased the final strength of
the product but also meant that
the head could penetrate wood
more easily.
Polished stone axes were important for
the widespread clearance of woods and
forest during the Neolithic period, when
crop and livestock farming developed on
a large scale. They are distributed very
widely and were traded over great
distances since the best rock types were
often very local. They also became
venerated objects, and were frequently
buried in long barrows or round barrows
with their former owners.

11. The Chalcolithic Period 5000 BCE- 3000 BCE
(The Copper Age) a name derived from the
Greek word “khalkós” (copper) and from
“líthos” (stone) or Copper Age, also known
as the Eneolithic or Aeneolithic (from Latin
aeneus "of copper") is an archaeological
period that researchers now regard as part
of the broader Neolithic. Earlier scholars
defined it as a transitional period between
the Neolithic and the Bronze Age.
In the Chalcolithic period, copper
predominated in metalworking technology.
Hence it was the period before it was
discovered that by adding tin to copper one
could create bronze, a metal alloy harder
and stronger than either component.

12. The Bronze Age marked the first time
humans started to work with metal.
Bronze tools and weapons soon replaced
earlier stone versions. Ancient
Sumerians in the Middle East may have
been the first people to enter the Bronze
Age. Humans made many technological
advances during the Bronze Age,
including the first writing systems and
the invention of the wheel. In the Middle
East and parts of Asia, the Bronze Age
lasted from roughly 3300 to 1200 B.C.,
ending abruptly with the near-
simultaneous collapse of several
prominent Bronze Age civilizations.

13. The Iron Age was a period in human history
that started between 1200 B.C. and 600
B.C., depending on the region, and followed
the Stone Age and Bronze Age. During the
Iron Age, people across much of Europe,
Asia and parts of Africa began making tools
and weapons from iron and steel. For some
societies, including Ancient Greece, the
start of the Iron Age was accompanied by a
period of cultural decline.
Humans may have smelted iron
sporadically throughout the Bronze Age,
though they likely saw iron as an inferior
metal. Iron tools and weapons weren’t as
hard or durable as their bronze
counterparts.

14. Timeline of Prehistoric Times

16. Thank you!