Inventions of the Bronze Age
Inventions of the Bronze Age include making better tools. As long as man was dependent upon stone tools, he was limited in the kinds of work he could do. Stone tools and weapons broke easily. To make better tools, man needed a new, longer lasting material that could be molded more easily into different sizes and shapes.
Learning to make Bronze tools
Toward the end of the New Stone Age, men in the Near East found that they could use copper in an almost pure metallic state to make tools and weapons. At first, they hammered the copper to shape it. Later they learned that with heat they could melt the ore, pour the liquid metal into molds, and make tools and weapons of any desired size or shape.
Early metalworkers made another advance when they discovered that tin and copper melted together in the right amounts made a metal called bronze. Bronze was easier to shape, was harder, and gave a sharper cutting edge than copper alone. Because it was the chief metal for about 2000 years, the period in which it was used is called the Bronze Age. This era began about 3000 B.C.
Progress in agriculture, transportation and commerce
Along with metal tools came other inventions. One of these was the plow drawn by animals. At first the farmer had planted seeds in holes made with a crude digging stick.
Then he had made a simple hoe which he pulled through the earth with a rope. The next step was to harness animals, such as the ox, to an improved hoe that became a plow. This invention enabled farmers to cultivate large fields instead of small plots. Another aid to farming was the development of better ways to control and use water for crops.
In places where there was little rainfall, men learned to irrigate; that is, to bring water to their fields by digging ditches to lakes and streams. They also learned to build dikes to protect their fields from floods. How to transport heavy loads was a problem for early man. Middle Stone Age man used a crude sled Later, man harnessed an ox to this type of vehicle. Someone may have learned that a sled could be pulled more easily if poles or logs were put under it so that it moved forward as the logs rolled along the ground.
It must have been much later that someone fastened pegs as axles to each end of the rolling logs. Some such series of experiments must have preceded the invention of the wheel, which is ranked as one of the greatest of human inventions. Improvements in land transport were accompanied by improvements in water travel.
An outstanding invention was the sailboat, which enabled men to move heavy goods safely on the seas. Sailors learned to chart the course of their voyages by taking advantage of prevailing winds, and learned the shortest sea routes from place to place. Another important invention was the potter’s wheel, which was a turntable on a vertical spindle.
The potter threw a lump of wet clay onto the turntable, or wheel, and as he turned the wheel, he could guide the clay with his hand into the desired shape. The craftsman could shape pottery faster with the potter’s wheel than without it.
All these new discoveries called for specialized services. No longer were all men hunters, herdsmen, or farmers. Some became metal smiths, sailors, potters, or varieties of tradesmen. Trade, or commerce, began when people turned to one another for certain goods and services.
Japan: Jump from New stone age to Iron age
An important lesson of history is that people around the world did not advance from one stage of prehistoric development to the next at the same time. Some people remained hunters while others became herdsmen and farmers.
Today, there are a few isolated areas in which men are still living in the Stone Age. Not all peoples of the world passed through the prehistoric stages in the same order. For example, the Japanese skipped the Bronze Age and passed directly from the New Stone Age to an age of iron.
