Culture and the Advancement of Technology
Once humans became settled into their environment and managed to manipulate agriculture until they were able to sustain their population, they were able to spend more time focusing on enhancing the primitive technologies that had already been developed, as well as begin to search for answers about things that were not understood. Thus came the development of religion and engineering. The more developed culture became the more answers and technologies it demanded. Essentially, with human development, culture became the modus operandi for the advancement of technology.
Easter Island is a very small island off the coast of South America. (Ponting) Although Easter Island has few permanent residents today, it is the graveyard of one of the worlds greatest early civilizations. The island is small enough that you could walk around the entire thing in just one day. There are no permanent freshwater sources and the soil is not accommodating to agriculture. When settlers from Mesoamerica arrived at the island in the fifth century there were no other mammals on the island. The population peaked at about 7,000 and was mainly supported on the chickens that the settlers had brought with them and an abundance of harvested sweet potatoes (Ponting). Because the harvesting of sweet potatoes requires so little care, the islanders were left with a considerable amount of idle time. In this time they developed one of the most advanced civilizations of the time period. Large stone sculptures and wide disc-like platforms (ahu) are relics of this ancient culture. (Ponting) The large sculptures are artistically crafted and required a great deal of technological skill and understanding. Additionally, the sculptures were then placed on the ahu's, which was no small task considering that they were twenty feet in length, weighed several tons, and had to be transported all the way across the island. The people of Easter Island clearly had a developed understanding of astronomy and the cosmos as well; each of the ahu are astronomically aligned towards a solstice or equinox. All of this was down in the name of religion, to fulfill a complex system of beliefs. Unfortunately, the people of Easter Island died because they "hit a wall", running out of natural resources. Because of warring people, they were unable to create a "tech fix" to transport them selves off the island. Still, Easter Island is a good example of the way idleness of time leads to culture which demands technology (Ponting).
In today's society, the way in which information is spread drastically differs from that of yesterday, especially in different parts of the world - more specifically, the Commonwealth of Nations.
The world has many unsolved mysteries that baffle even the most intelligent minds. One particular mystery, though, has remained truly unsolved. This mystery is the Easter Island heads that were built by people using primitive tools and manpower. Why is this mystery so puzzling and have we any clue about how the people of Easter Island accomplished this amazing task? Well, there are numerous facts, theories, and unanswered questions to be discovered. The following evidence further explains why and how the Easter Island people built the great stone carvings.
When and why did Homo Sapiens begin to grow into a thriving population that have produced both cognitive and technological advances? No one knows for certain and because of this question countless amounts of people have decided to become anthropologists. Anthropology is defined as, “the study of human beings and their ancestors through time and space and in relation to physical character, environmental and social relations, and culture(Merriam-Webster). Despite all of the time and effort that anthropologists have put into discovering the correct response, the answer to this question is constantly changing because population, cognitivity and technology are constantly changing too. One way to determine how these factors affect Homo Sapiens is by studying past societies. The development of technology expanded rapidly in the Upper Paleolithic era. The technological and cognitive advances made by the growing Upper Paleolithic people changed their lives for the better and allowed them to adapt to their environment in innumerable ways.
Watkins, Jeffery. Regents Prep: Global History: Change & Turning Points:, "Neolithic Revolution." Last modified 2003. Accessed March 23, 2012. http://regentsprep.org/Regents/global/themes/change/neo.cfm
As an amateur reporter for the school newspaper, I have had the opportunity to interview quite a variety of people on many different topics. One of my favorite questions to ask is, "What do you think has had the most influence on American culture?" Why do I like asking this particular question? The answer is simple: the variety and range of responses. While some answers are more interesting than others, I must say that I've learned quite a bit from all of them.
Introduction: In Culture Making Recovering Our Creative Calling, Andy Crouch exposes the fallacies way in which proponents of worldview have analyzed the concept of culture and argues for the need and responsibility for Christians to create and cultivate culture, rather than merely analyze it (Chaplin, 2010). Crouch (2008) seeks to answer the following questions: “What is it, exactly, that we are called to do in the world? Are we called to transform culture or to change the world?” (p. 11). Crouch attempts to define the concept of culture and why it matters by introducing academic research on the nature of culture with extensive theological study, and Crouch and defines how we may create culture within our own sphere of influence (Culture Making, 2008). Major Points: Part
Material culture is a method that is essential to answering my research question, how did homeownership and the renovation/restoration process create place identity? I define material culture as the material representation of the culture (Culture, 2007; Schlereth, 1982; Glassie, 1999). The definition I use for place identity is how the house is a reflection of a resident’s ideologies (Droseltis & Vignoles, 2010). These two ideas come together in the field of material culture studies. Materials culture studies embody the work of scholars and researchers that examine human behavior through the lens of objects using a variety of approaches. Taking five pieces of scholarship I identify a source each researcher used, and how they used material culture.
There are weapons, such as nukes, that can kill a number of innocent people. Also, many people and soldiers are killed because of the advances in weapons. As a result, weapons have really helped us, but it has also affected us badly by hurting our nation in numbers. Also with weapons advancing they can be more dangerous. Also, weapons have negative impact, like other countries have chemical nuclear bombs that can affect people.
Growing up in America I never seemed to notice the culture around me. Whenever I did notice, I just assumed that it was normal all over the world. As I went to school; however, I learned that this was, in fact, not the case. Because of my ‘child-like’ ignorance, I was able to enjoy learning about the diversity of other cultures without taking my own into consideration. As I now enter young adulthood though, I see how important culture is to people even if they do not notice it themselves. Technology plays a gigantic role in American Culture everyday and always will till the end of the days of humanity. American technology is Advanced, taken for granted, used for good, and sometimes hard to learn.
The modern innovation and human advancement has provided everything that one can imagine in today’s world. However, the history of human advancement can be trace back to 9000 B.C.E. The Neolithic era was the transition of nomadic population, who gained their food largely from foraging into the agricultural life and settlement. The significant adaptation of the people in Neolithic era was agricultural and domestication, which is known as Neolithic Revolution or the Agricultural Revolution. This transformation of early human society was largely influence by the warmest climate and the rapid population growth. The Agricultural Revolution caused humans to settle, leading to farming, animal domestication, and the creation of civilizations.
Ever thought about where modern technology evolved from? Well thank the Neolithic Era, also known as The New Stone Age. Believe it or not, the first technologies were created twelve thousand years ago (Neolithic Period). Most of the tools were made from stones. Agriculture and plants were also a big development. During this time, people gave up there nomadic lifestyle. Instead of traveling around, they settled for a permanent place. Doing this allowed them to graze and use animals as a tool. Domestication was very important to them.
One of the most significant inventions was introduced during the Neolithic period. It was the shift from hunting animals and gathering plants to the production of food. People no longer had to travel long distances to search for water and food because they learned how to grow
Tools allowed them to have regular access to meat within their diet, which was an important turning point in human evolution. Furthermore, weapons are also a reflection of the early humans improvement in cognitive abilities as they realized the importance of their safety and it showed that humans were beginning to become smarter as they had to adapt to protect their families from prey and required more efficient hunting of a wider selection of food, like different types of animals. Lastly, the artwork of the humans during the time revealed their level of intellect, imagination and safety. The progression and change in human material culture directly reflect the changes in human cognitive abilities over
Before delving into the diverse examples of technologies constrained by culture, we should consider the example which has become the poster child for social control of both technology and environment. According to the first chapter of Clive Ponting’s Green History of the World Easter Island flourished as a society for a thousand years starting from approximately the fifth century. Hallmarked by the large stone heads that are scattered across the island, Easter Island collapsed as a society because of the mass deforestation and destruction carried out by the islanders. The large trees that were present on Easter Island were used by the islanders for a large number of traditional applications. Large canoes were fashioned for sea fishing, bark was used for creating nets, and timber was used for building houses. The most significant technology that the trees of Easter Island were employed for was the transportation of the totemic heads that represented tribal status in the Island’s culture. Easter Island, like so many other early and modern civilizations, went about employing the environmental resources of the island around them. Within about a thousand years they had almost completely deforested Easter Island and their complex society and large population had collapsed. What is most important about Easter Island is not that a society overused its environment and collapsed; many different cultures have in the past overextended their environment and many do so today. No doubt we shall continue to do so into the future. What is prevalent about Easter Island is the reason the islanders deforested their environment. The large stone heads that the Easter Islanders employed as symbols of status in their society require trees for their transportation. More than 600 of the heads dot the landscape today and there are others left incomplete in the Easter Island quarries.
Most people immigrate to United states of America every day for different reasons. People from many different racial and ethnic backgrounds live in a large country like the United States. Because of cultural differences and various prejudices, it can be difficult for individuals from one background to interact with individuals from another background. Fortunately, a line of research, grounded in contact theory and conducted by sociologists and social psychologists, suggests that interaction among individuals from different backgrounds can indeed help overcome tensions arising from their different cultures and any prejudices they may hold ( Sociology Barkan) Culture influences not only language but the gestures we use when we interact, how far apart we stand from each other when we talk, and the values we consider most important for our children to learn, to name just a few. Without culture, we could not have a society. ( Barkan Page-) culture can influence our daily life in different ways.