SPACE AGE MODERN CRACK

The Stone Age is the first in a three-phase framework of human prehistory – the others being Bronze and Iron – a phrase coined in the 19th century by Danish scholar Christian J Thomsen, who made the assumption that each period was technologically more complex than that which preceded it. What we weren’t told was that this was the first technology age, when we learnt to shape stone to make tools for hunting, for food preparation, to defend ourselves, to create structures for living in and monuments that acted as astronomical calendars and spiritual centres. While learning about the Stone Age at school we were routinely told that the earliest humans were hunter-gatherers, living on what they could find or catch. Stone: from cooking to calendars Stone Age: c2500000-3200 BC When we come to the 21st century, innovations in materials such as silicon and carbon are so rapid that we need monthly reports to keep up.įinally, why no carbon? That’s because here at E&T, when it comes to the fourth most abundant element in the known universe, we reckon its heyday is yet to come. In materials science discoveries and processes overlap, reinvent themselves, often finding new applications and solutions to long-established challenges. Many of the materials the Victorians worked with, especially iron and glass, weren’t new, despite elements on the periodic table being discovered all the time. While the Stone Age is reckoned in millions of years, subsequent ages are counted in tens of millennia and ever-decreasing units, until we reach the Industrial Revolution, when the introduction of new processes was sufficiently quick for the engineering age to be measured in decades. It’s a bias that reflects how materials have changed society with increasing rapidity. So much so that the main prehistoric phases of our civilisation aren’t named after our linguistic prowess, social interactions or economic achievements, but by the engineering materials of the age. The evolution of humankind is inextricably bound up with our use of materials and tools. From the moment we realised that some rocks split open to produce sharp edges, we’ve developed weapons. Ever since we first plaited long grasses to make a rope with which to lash together a few branches to make shelter, we’ve been creating buildings.

SPACE AGE MODERN CRACK

Even since we first picked up a rock to crack open a nut or sharpened a stick to spear a fish or used a flint to create a spark to light a fire, we’ve been using tools.

Space age modern