From Stone to Silicon: An Over-Simplified History of Tech and Power
How technology shifted power from our tribal past to a potential future
I’m not a historian, so take this post with a pinch of salt. I wanted to explore how technology has shaped society and the economy throughout human history.
This is a very simplified overview I put together to see long-term patterns more clearly, meant for non-experts like myself. Perhaps you’ll find it interesting too.
1) Stone Era: Hunter-Gatherer (3,300,000–12,000 BCE)
Development: Tools
Surplus: Skill
Classes: Tribe Member
The main development was the creation and use of tools, which produced a skill-based surplus. Tribes were the primary social units, led by informal leaders yet broadly egalitarian, with survival and skill as the main sources of advantage.
a) Creation Age (3,300,000-400,000 BCE)
Humans not only used tools but also invented and shaped objects, such as stone axes, wooden spears, basic fur clothing, and hollowed-out containers.
b) Fire Age (400,000-100,000 BCE)
Learning to control fire allowed humans to cook and eat a wider variety of foods, stay warm, deter predators, and develop more advanced tools.
c) Symbol Age (100,000-12,000 BCE)
Humans developed language, art, and ritual, creating shared meaning that allowed culture, social cohesion, and early symbolic communication to flourish.
2) Agrarian Era: Ancient (12,000-1,000 BCE)
Development: Agriculture
Surplus: Food
Classes: Master/ Slave
Agriculture produced a food surplus, enabling specialization and population growth. Land became valuable to those who could claim and defend it, dividing society into classes and entrenching private property. A new warrior class allowed stronger civilizations to conquer weaker ones, taking wealth and slaves to expand their power. While many people worked as free or bonded labourers, the use of slave labour gave those states a productive advantage, supporting larger economies and grander projects.
Dependence on farming and defence elevated physical strength, making inheritance and patriarchal rule more dominant. Slavery persisted across much of recorded history, with global abolition only emerging more than 10,000 years later in the modern era, alongside the beginning of a return to gender equality in the mid-20th century.
On why areas like the Americas, sub-Saharan Africa, and Oceania didn’t develop as rapidly, much of it comes down to geography and available domesticable species. The Old World had animals such as horses, cattle, sheep, and goats, which could supplement some human labour and expand transport, trade, and farming. South America had llamas and alpacas, but they were smaller and weaker than horses or oxen. North America had bison, but they were too aggressive to domesticate. In sub-Saharan Africa, zebras were likewise too skittish and prone to panic. While camels were domesticated in North Africa, the Sahara Desert created a natural barrier that limited their spread southward. The region’s geography, with difficult terrain and rivers that are hard to navigate, also made trade and cultural exchange harder. Oceania, meanwhile, simply lacked large animals suitable for domestication.
a) Farming Age (12,000-6,000 BCE)
People learned to plant crops, allowing larger and more reliable harvests than foraging. Irrigation increased food production, and animal domestication expanded available resources such as meat, labour, and wool. As fewer people were needed to farm, others specialized as potters, weavers, toolmakers, traders, spiritual leaders, record keepers, builders, warriors, and rulers.
b) Urbanization Age (6,000-3,000 BCE)
Settlements grew in fertile areas, leading to the first cities and civilisations. Population growth increased specialization and hierarchy: rulers, warriors, and priests dominated, often justifying power through claimed divine status of the leader.
Monumental structures such as pyramids reflected advances in engineering, mathematics, and social organization. Sturdy houses and defensive walls became common, while pictographic and early symbolic writing, wheels, standardized measures, and calendars emerged alongside systems for trade, taxation, and record keeping.
c) Bronze Age (3,000-1,000 BCE)
The creation of bronze (copper and tin) transformed tools and weapons, strengthening ploughs, containers, and military equipment. Long-distance trade networks arose to source metals, supporting specialized smiths and artisans. Bronze’s high cost widened class divisions and gave military advantages to bronze-armed states, driving further conquest and empire.
3) Construction Era: Antiquity (1000 BCE-500 CE)
Development: Structure
Surplus: Organisation
Classes: Noble/ Subject
Cities expanded, and increasingly complex systems of building, governance, trade, and culture emerged. Skilled crafts and specialized labour grew in importance, supported by organized administration and codified laws. Philosophy and civic governance flourished, exemplified by Athenian democracy and the planned infrastructure and disciplined legions of Rome.
While slavery persisted, urban economies gradually shifted toward free labour (such as plebeians) and coin-based pay. Skilled workers were employed on public projects, and the gap between wealthy landowners and common labourers deepened. Citizenship and governance were generally limited to men, while women, slaves, and foreigners were excluded from direct participation.
a) Iron Age (1000-600 BCE)
The invention of hotter furnaces made it possible to smelt iron, producing stronger tools (especially for farming), weapons, and building materials. Advances in glassmaking, shipbuilding, and navigation expanded trade routes and naval power. Because iron was cheaper than bronze, tools and weapons became more widely available, strengthening both states and common farmers.
b) Script Age (600-200 BCE)
The alphabetization of writing systems spread literacy, improving record keeping, administration, and education. Advances in geometry and mathematics, such as Euclid’s Elements, laid foundations for engineering and architecture. Expanding literacy and accumulated knowledge also nurtured philosophy and the arts: philosophy examined ethics, politics, truth, existence, and nature, while realistic bronze and marble sculpture reflected a deepening study of the human form and the material world.
c) Infrastructure Age (200 BCE-500 CE)
Improved concrete enabled more durable and versatile construction, including aqueducts, canals, arches, and domes for large-scale buildings. Rome’s network of straight, well-built roads improved travel and communication, while widespread standardized coinage facilitated trade and economic growth.
4) Circulation Era: Feudalism (500-1450 CE)
Development: Mechanization
Surplus: Mechanical
Classes: Lord/ Peasant
Earlier empires had often expanded beyond what contemporary technology could sustain. Limited communication, slow transport, and insufficient surplus wealth made it difficult to govern large territories effectively, leading to decentralization and the rise of local lordships under feudalism.
After the fall of these centralised empires, power fragmented into local hierarchies. Society was organised around obligations of land and service: monarchs granted estates to lords (dukes, earls, barons, and others) in exchange for loyalty and military support. Knights held smaller fiefs under similar terms, while free farmers, peasants, and serfs worked the land at the bottom of the hierarchy. Urban centres persisted and grew in importance, as artisans and merchants increased production and trade within and between regions.
Peasants typically farmed their lord’s land six days a week, keeping part of the produce and surrendering the rest as rent or tax, with one day reserved for rest or religious observance.
a) Agronomy Age (500-900 CE)
The three-field crop rotation system improved soil fertility and increased yields, supporting larger populations. The introduction of the iron heavy plow allowed for more efficient cultivation of heavier soils.
b) Milling Age (900-1200 CE)
Waterwheels and windmills became widespread, providing power for grinding grain and other industrial processes, greatly increasing productivity. New architectural techniques, including pointed (Gothic) arches and flying buttresses, enabled the construction of larger stone structures such as castles and cathedrals.
c) Craft Age (1200-1450 CE)
Water- and wind-powered mills began to be applied to textile processing, reducing reliance on human labour. Animal labour and mechanical power, though limited by location and weather, further boosted productivity. Advances in metalworking produced full plate armour and improved weapons.
5) Renaissance Era: Mercantilism (1450-1800 CE)
Development: Empiricism
Surplus: Knowledge
Classes: Merchant/ Labourer
In Europe, a renewed focus on Greek and Roman philosophy and art, preserved and expanded by Islamic empires during their golden age, along with innovations from China, including gunpowder and paper production, spurred significant societal change.
European states started centralising power in modern nation-states, and colonialism expanded across the globe, with economies increasingly focused on extracting wealth and resources from colonies. This strengthened the influence of merchants, also known as the bourgeoisie.
Enlightenment values such as liberty, equality, and democracy, combined with the growing wealth and influence of a new middle class, encouraged merchants and peasants to support reforms or revolutions against monarchical rule.
a) Printing Age (1450-1550 CE)
The invention of the printing press, combined with increased paper production, greatly accelerated the spread of ideas. Bibles printed in native languages, rather than Latin, helped spark the Reformation and the split of Protestantism from Catholicism. The wider availability of books and pamphlets also advanced education and literacy.
The adoption of double-entry bookkeeping and modern accounting methods made trade and finance more systematic and transparent.
b) Navigation Age (1550-1650 CE)
Improvements in shipbuilding and navigation enabled long-distance exploration, global trade, and European colonization. The development of the caravel, a light, fast, and manoeuvrable sailing ship, was key to the Age of Discovery.
Advances in metalworking, such as improved blast furnaces and finery forges, produced stronger iron for tools, weapons, and machinery.
c) Scientific Age (1650-1800 CE)
Natural philosophy evolved into modern science as evidence-based investigation and experimentation became central to knowledge. This shift led to rapid advances in understanding the physical world.
Improved glassmaking produced better lenses for eyeglasses, microscopes, and telescopes, revolutionizing optics, astronomy, and biology. Advances in clockmaking allowed for more accurate timekeeping, navigation, and mechanical precision.
This age culminated in the French and American Revolutions, as well as political and economic reforms in Britain and the Netherlands, marking the transition toward democratic governance and economies based on capital.
6) Industrial Era: Capitalism (1800-2040? CE)
Development: Machines
Surplus: Energy
Classes: Employer/ Employee
The invention of the steam engine, combined with scientific progress and the rise of financial markets, shifted power from the aristocracy to industrial capitalists. Mass production transformed societies faster than any previous system. Economic control now came from ownership of capital rather than inherited titles, while most people worked for wages.
Standards of living generally improved, and movements to expand liberty, equality, and democracy grew. Yet the era also saw deep inequality, imperialism, and new ideologies struggling over how modern industrial societies should be organised.
a) Steam Age (1800-1900 CE)
Coal-powered steam engines drove factories, railways, and steamships, unleashing rapid industrialization. Advances in metallurgy, chemistry, and textile production reshaped economies and daily life.
Urbanization accelerated as millions left rural work for industrial cities. While wealth expanded, factory labour was often harsh and exploitative, prompting early socialist, anarchist, and labour movements to challenge capitalist inequality.
Large-scale slavery was officially abolished, though exploitative labour continued in new forms through colonial systems and wage dependency.
b) Electrical Age (1900-1980 CE)
Electricity and oil powered the next wave of industrialization. Inventions such as the telephone, radio, automobile, and aeroplane transformed communication and mobility.
Two world wars exposed both the power and the destructiveness of industrial society. The Great Depression revealed weaknesses in capitalism, prompting new state reforms. The crises of the early century led to global struggles between liberal capitalism, state socialism, and fascism in World War II, the most destructive conflict in human history, marked by the Holocaust.
After 1945, capitalism reformed through the New Deal and mixed welfare systems, while socialism expanded under the Soviet bloc. The United Nations, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and decolonization movements redefined global order. Women’s rights advanced, while early computers, nuclear power, and the space race hinted at a coming technological revolution.
c) Digital Age (1980-2040? CE)
The spread of personal computers, the internet, and mobile devices marked the rise of the digital economy. Satellites, automation, and information networks reshaped communication, production, and governance.
Natural gas became a major global energy source, complementing oil and nuclear power and supporting expanding industrial, digital, and urban systems.
Neoliberal economic policies encouraged global integration and financial deregulation, contributing to both rapid growth and instability, culminating in the 2008 Global Financial Crisis.
The European Union, the rise of China, and emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, renewable energy, and biotechnology began redefining the balance of power and the nature of work.
The next era, looking into the future, is naturally much more speculative:
7) Agentic Era: Future (2040-2075 CE)
Development: Agents
Surplus: Cognitive
Classes: Citizen-Owner
The rise of digital and embodied artificial intelligence begins shifting economies away from reliance on human employment for labour. As automation displaces traditional work, citizens increasingly demand a new social contract in which survival and dignity are no longer tied to waged labour. Technological advances reshape economics, politics, and society in turn.
One path forward is to ensure that all citizens share in the wealth generated by intelligent and autonomous systems, gradually merging the roles of citizen and owner through widespread equity and dividend-based income. Inequality may persist between the global north and south, but with the capacity to scale energy, intelligence, labour, and resources rapidly, artificial scarcity begins to fade.
a) Intelligence Age (2040-2075 CE)
Energy: Renewable power, large-scale batteries, next-generation fission reactors, and small modular reactors.
Intelligence: Artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and distributed governance systems.
Labour and Logistics: Autonomous androids, vehicles, and drones; flying cars; advanced 3D printing and on-demand manufacturing.
Resources: Autonomous mining, vertical farming, and lab-grown meat.
b) Biotech and Cybernetic Age (2075-2100 CE)
Energy: Nuclear Fusion.
Intelligence: Cybernetic implants and brain-computer interfaces.
Labour: Nanotechnology, gene editing, and longevity medicine.
Resources: Asteroid mining and a Moon base, with lunar industry supporting space exploration.
c) Space Age (2100- CE)
Human settlement expands beyond Earth, as Mars bases grow and early terraforming begins. Orbital manufacturing around Earth and Mars make greater use of asteroid resources while protecting nature.
Potentially, the hope of the Enlightenment is realized, with liberty, equality, and democracy for all, perhaps echoing the more egalitarian social structures of early humans, but this time in a post-scarcity world of universal empowerment and shared prosperity, fulfilling the needs of everyone.
Throughout history, technological innovations have reshaped economies, social structures, and the distribution of power, from the creation of tools to the rise of AI and space industry. Surpluses of skill, food, organisation, mechanical, knowledge, energy, and cognition have repeatedly enabled specialization, economic development, and the expansion of human capability. The hope is that the next era may combine these lessons, achieving a post-scarcity world with power in the hands of all rather than a small elite.
Fascinating. Your point about technology shaping society from the earliest tools is realy spot on. It's a simplified take, as you said, but seeing these patterns laid out like this makes you think. It makes perfect sense how surplus created new power dynamics. Eager to read more!