Top 10 of new tech

[Adm.Naismith]

Darkcloud:

quote: I once worked out a new tech chart until the year 2100 with improvements such as Laser Mounted Warfare and Genetic Discoveries. I can list them if you like...

Sure! Why not? Do you think it's worthy to look at "The List v.2", too?

Please, tell us also where do you take your "future tech" suggestion (I mean: to define future dicoveries, do you use Science Fiction concept, read about real research on scientific magazine, let free your imagination...).

Anyone is acceptable, of course, but some approach are more realistic than other, and I think is fair to take this in account, too.

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Admiral Naismith AKA mcostant

[Ribannah]

quote: Originally posted by DarkCloud on 10-02-2000 09:43 PM I once worked out a new tech chart until the year 2100 with improvements such as Laser Mounted Warfare and Genetic Discoveries. I can list them if you like...

Sure! Better make it another thread though.



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If you have no feet, don't walk on fire

[DarkCloud]

I mostly used real research and my own imagination.

I guess I'll post them in another thread...

Thank you for your support.

[S. Kroeze]

Good and important thread! Nice discussion; thank you!

I'll add my favourite 'advances' to be included in CivIII.

I. Plant domestication
Its importance is probably obvious to everyone. Some critics might point out that it is older than 4000BC. They are right of course! My reply would be that it is not written in stone that a Civgame starts in 4000BC. I still hope that more prehistory will be included. And all the same the majority of mankind didn't master Plant domestication in 4000BC.
By the way, several advances in the current TechTree were used before 4000BC: Pottery, Granaries, Archery, City Walls, Masonry, Ceremonial Burial, Temples, Markets, Trade(yes, long-distance(!)trade), Polytheism, Seafaring.
Roadbuilding was on the other hand barely applied!

II. Animal domestication

III. The Plough
'Sometime between 6000 and 3000BC the plough and the hoe-stick were developed. The prehistoric and ancient oriental ploughshares were made of wood and could not be worked in other than so-called 'light soils'. But soon the technique of working metals was discovered. By 3000BC iron ores were occasionally smelted in Mesopotamia. Iron objects dated 3000BC have been found in Sumerian Ur and in Middle Egypt. After 1400BC iron was smelted and worked on a large scale. The adoption and the diffusion of the iron ploughshares and other new metallic agricultural tools opened 'heavy soils' to cultivation. The Greek and Italic civilizations would not have been possible without these developments.'
(source: C.M.Cipolla;'The Economic History of World Population',1962)

CivII seems to suggest that irrigation works on all soils and in all climates. Nothing could be farther from the truth!

IV. The Sail
'Sailing boats appeared very early, and were soon adopted over much of the world. The first known indication of their existence is preserved in the British Museum. On two pre-dynastic vases of Amratian style from Middle Egypt we find depicted something that is undoubtedly a sailing boat. The date of the vases is probably about 3500BC. There is also plenty of evidence to indicate that sailing boats were plying the Eastern Mediterranean by 3000BC.'
(source: C.M.Cipolla;'The Economic History of World Population',1962)

Map Making was of course a very important development. But linking it to the trireme is in my opinion rather artificial.

V. The Mill
Watermills were known in the West in the first century BC but for at least two centuries their number remained small. According to some authors it was only when slave labour grew scarce that the water-mill was adopted throughout Western Europe. The explanation may be too simplistic but it is a fact that the breakthrough occurred in the Middle Ages. In medieval Europe water-mills were no longer used only for grinding grains and pressing olives but were applied to other productive activities such as the production of cloth, beer, paper, and iron, as well as 'to turn various machines to make copper pots and weapons of war, to pound herbs, to spin silk, polish arms and saw planks.' The use of water-mills in cloth-production accounted for an extraordinary growth in textile manufacturing in thirteenth-century England. By the end of the eighteenth century in Europe there were more than half a million water-mills, and a large number of them had more than one wheel. In China the appearance of the water-mill was more or less contemporary to its appearance in the West. Paradoxically enough, however, the first mention of water-mills in China is not in connection with the turning of millstones but with the complicated job of blowing metallurgical bellows.

Windmills appeared in Persia in the seventh century AD. The Persian windmill had a vertical axle. The Northern Chinese must have been acquainted with the Persian windmill during the thirteenth century. In Europe windmills appeared towards the end of the twelfth century. A persistent tradition has maintained that the idea of windmills was brought back by the first crusaders. The Western windmill, with the axle horizontal, was, however, from the beginning so different from the Persian as to make it almost a new invention. It spread rapidly from Normandy to France, England, the Low Countries, Northern Germany and the Baltic area, while in Central and Eastern Europe it appeared only after the fifteenth century.'
(source: C.M.Cipolla;'The Economic History of World Population',1962)

VI. Printing

VII. Empiricism
'First, science, purely as a form of thought, is one of the supreme achievements of the human mind, and to have a humanistic understanding of man's powers one must sense the importance of science, as of philosophy, literature, or the arts. Second, science has increasingly affected practical affairs, entering into the health, wealth, and happiness of humankind. It has changed the size of populations and the use of raw materials, revolutionized methods of production, transport, business, and war, and so helped to relieve some human problems while aggravating others. This is especially true of modern civilization since the seventeenth century. Third, in the modern world ideas have had a way of passing over from science into other domains of thought. Many people today, for example, in their notions of themselves, their neighbours, or the meaning of life, are influenced by ideas which they believe to be those of Freud or Einstein- they talk of repressions or relativity without necessarily knowing much about them. Ideas derived from biology and from Darwin- such as evolution and the struggle for existence- have likewise spread far and wide. Similarly the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century had repercussions far beyond the realm of pure science. It changed ideas of religion and of God and man. And it helped to spread certain very deep-seated beliefs, such as that the physical universe in which man finds himself is essentially orderly and harmonious, that the human reason is capable of understanding and dealing with it, and that man can conduct his own affairs by methods of peaceable exchange of ideas and rational agreements.

The scientific view became characteristic of European society about the middle of the seventeenth century. Two men stand out as prophets of a world reconstructed by science. One was the Englishman Francis Bacon(1561-1626), the other the Frenchman René Descartes(1596-1650). Both published their most influential books between 1620 and 1640. Both addressed themselves to the problem of knowledge. Both asked themselves how it was possible for human beings to know anything with certainty or to have a reliable, truthful, and usable knowledge of the world of nature. Both shared in the doubts of their day. They branded virtually all beliefs of preceding generations (outside religion) as worthless. Both ridiculed the tendency to put faith in ancient books, to cite the writings of Aristotle or others, on questions having to do with the workings of nature. Both attacked earlier methods of seeking knowledge; they rejected the methods of the "schoolmen" or "scholastics", the thinkers in the academic tradition of the universities founded in the Middle Ages. On the whole, medieval philosophy had been rationalistic and deductive. That is, its characteristic procedure was to start with definitons and general propositions and then discover what further knowledge could be logically deduced from the definitions thus accepted. Or it proceeded by affirming the nature of an object to be such-and-such(e.g., that "man is a political animal") and then describing how objects of such a nature do or should behave. These methods, which owed much to Aristotle and other ancient codifiers of human thought, had generally ceased to be fruitful in discovery of knowledge of nature. Bacon and Descartes held that the medieval (or Aristotelian) methods were backward. They held that truth is not something that we postulate at the beginning and then explore in all its ramifications, but that it is something which we find at the end, after a long process of investigaton, experiment, or intermediate thought.

Francis Bacon planned a great work in many volumes, to be known as the Instauratio Magna or "Great Renewal", calling for a complete new start in science and civilization. He completed only two parts. One, published in 1620, was the Novum Organum or new method of acquiring knowledge. Here he insisted on inductive method. In the inductive method we proceeed from the particular to the general, from the concrete to the abstract. Bacon advised men to put aside all traditional ideas, to rid themselves of prejudices and preconceptions, to look at the world with fresh eyes, to observe and study the innumerable things that are actually perceived by the senses. Men before Bacon used the inductive method, but he formalized it as a method and became a leading philosopher of empiricism. This philosophy, the founding of knowledge on observation and experience, has always proved a useful safeguard against fitting facts into preconceived patterns. It demands that we let the patterns of our thought be shaped by actual facts as we observe them.'
(source: R.R.Palmer/J.Colton;'A History of the Modern World',1978)

So without this empiricism and its inductive method Newton's Theory of Gravity, which actually did redefine the universe, wouldn't have been possible.

VIII. Trias Politica
'In his great work, The Spirit of Laws, published in 1748, Montesquieu developed two principal ideas. One was that forms of government varied according to climate and circumstances, for example, that despotism was suited only to large empires in hot climates, and that democracy would work only in small city-states. His other great doctrine, aimed against royal absolutism in France (which he called "despotism"), was the separation and balance of powers. In France he believed that power should be divided between the king and a great many "intermediate bodies"- parliaments, provincial estates, organized nobility, chartered towns, and even the church. It was natural for him, a judge in parliament, a provincial and a nobleman, to favour the first three and reasonable for him to recognize the position of the bourgeoisie of the towns; as for the church, he observed that, while he took no stock in its teachings, he thought it useful as an offset to undue centralization of government. He greatly admired the English constitution as he understood it, believing that England carried over, more succesfully than any other country, the feudal liberties of the early Middle Ages. He thought that in England the necessary seperation and balance of powers was obtained by an ingenious mixture of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy (king, lords, and commons), and by a separation of the functions of the executive, legislature, and judiciary. This doctrine had a wide influence and was well known to the Americans who in 1787 wrote the Constitution of the United States. Montesquieu's own philosophe friends thought him too conservative and even tried to dissuade him from publishing his ideas.'
(source: R.R.Palmer/J.Colton;'A History of the Modern World',1978)

Another important theory contributing to this range of thought is of course the constitutionalism of John Locke(1632-1704) and the congenial school of Natural Law.

IX. Nationalism

X. The Arts
I think it rather shameless how CivII disregards the importance of literature, the visual arts and music. It is true that much of the world's great art was only produced for a small elite; there are some significant exceptions though: the epic poetry of Homer, the medieval cathedrals, the Shakespearian theatre, plainsong, the operas of Verdi, which is a far from exhaustive list. I am of firm opinion that human Art is one of the few undeniable positive contributions of humanity to the universe and defines (with religion) a civilization. I do not have any doubt that when in 3000AD there is life on this planet (or on some other planet) that is both human and civilized, some people will read T'ang poetry, Dante or the Mahâbhârata, while others will admire the sculpture of Polykleitos or the paintings of Titian or in the Lascaux cave (possibly a copy), and others will listen to Mozart's 'don Giovanni' or Bach's 'Matthäus Passion', while the ballet 'the Rites of Spring' by Strawinsky will still be danced, perhaps in another choreography. Life without some truly great art wouldn't be worth living!
Time will be a severe, but fair judge. It will show no pity with commercial rubbish.

One last remark: Socialism is at least fifty years older than Communism. Marx disliked Socialism because in his eyes it was unscientific and sentimental, so he invented another name!
[This message has been edited by S. Kroeze (edited October 04, 2000).]

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Great thread. Thoughts about what's been said, and a couple of additions:

Mass Communication should definitely be included (full disclosure: I'm a mass comm professor), and should do the following:
1) decreases unhappiness every time you take a city in war or sign a peace treaty; increases unhappiness every time an AI or Barb takes a city of yours.
2) allow you to build a wonder called "Hollywood"; with this wonder, every entertainer in the city that builds it counts as an entertainer in every city in your empire.

Mass Communication (couples with mass production) should lead to a development I'm surprised no one has mentioned: Consumer Society. This allows for the building of malls, which would either increase trade or improve happiness -- I can't decide which (even though they have the opposite effect, on both counts, with me).

Finally, University + Democracy should = Public Education, which should allow for the building of school systems in each city, providing some kind of improvement of science or trade (or, better still, both, which would be both historically accurate and ideologically pleasing ). Public Education should also allow the building of a wonder, Universal Public Education, which would act as a school system in every city.

Just my 2 cents.

[Ribannah]

quote: Originally posted by S. Kroeze on 10-04-2000 09:26 PM I'll add my favourite 'advances' to be included in CivIII.

Great contribution, especially the background info!
I like the idea of adding some prehistory. Could be an option, perhaps. Relevant techs that come to mind are for instance: fire, stonecutting, herding, storytelling, the needle, the canoe.

I. Plant domestication
Cultivation, rather, as a tech that marks progress. Don't quite see yet where to put this in the tech tree and what it could add to the game.

II. Animal domestication
Horseback Riding is already in the tree. Other animals
have contributed much less (mainly hunting and entertainment).

III. The Plough
Good one, but not quite in the same category as The Wheel. Many inventions such as this one are implicitly included in Engineering and Invention - because otherwise the list would be endless. The Plough is certainly not minor though.

IV. The Sail
Between Map Making and Seafaring, I see little room.
Unless, as you seem to suggest, Map Making would get a new place (to include land mapping?). However, without Map Making the impact of The Sail is much smaller than, say, The Canoe. What would it allow, in the game?

VII. Empiricism
Another good one . Linking University + Invention to Theory of Gravity, I think. Or maybe this way: replacing Theory of Gravity as a tech, with Isaac Newton's Theory of Gravity as a wonder.

VIII. Trias Politica
Included in Democracy.

IX. Nationalism
See elsewhere in this thread.

X. The Arts
Are assumed to be known at the dawn of civilization. Represented in Civ II by entertainers and several Wonders; elsewhere I have suggested another art -related wonder named "Woodstock". It is weird, however, that in Civ II Shakespeare's Theatre is made available by Medicine.

>One last remark: Socialism is at least fifty years older than Communism.

There have been communes through the ages, often based on religion, long before the term Communism was introduced. The question, as always, is: when did the tech become a genuine part of human civilization?

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If you have no feet, don't walk on fire

[Vrank Prins]

quote: Originally posted by S. Kroeze on 10-04-2000 09:26 PM III. The Plough .... Sometime between 6000 and 3000BC the plough and the hoe-stick were developed. The prehistoric and ancient oriental ploughshares were made of wood and could not be worked in other than so-called 'light soils'. But soon the technique of working metals was discovered. By 3000BC iron ores were occasionally smelted in Mesopotamia. Iron objects dated 3000BC have been found in Sumerian Ur and in Middle Egypt. .... V. The Mill .... The explanation may be too simplistic but it is a fact that the breakthrough occurred in the Middle Ages. In medieval Europe water-mills were no longer used only for grinding grains and pressing olives but were applied to other .... VII. Empiricism .... First, science, purely as a form of thought, is one of the supreme achievements of the human mind, and to have a humanistic understanding of man's powers one must sense the importance of science .... [This message has been edited by S. Kroeze (edited October 04, 2000).]

Good comment !!!
I hope my addition will have the same quality.

1 III the plough
There are few agricultural advances in CIV-II. It would be great if there were more in CIV-III. In the book I have on agricultural history -from the dutch historian Slicher van Bath- the plough is also mentioned as a major breakthrough in agricultural development.
Another fine new CIV-III agricultural advancement would be
THE THREE-FIELDSYSTEM (in dutch "drieslagstelsel").
It is not exactly known in which part of the world this system is developed but it emerged in europa from about 800 a.d., the Carolingian* time (*Charlemagne). Before that time all over the world (f.i. in the roman-empire) the two-field system was commonly used.
Slicher van Bath also tells me that about the same time the 3-fieldsystem was introduced, the blade of the simple plough was drastically improved. It is calculated that by using this system and the new plough, foodproduction in comparison to the two-fieldsystem had increased about 50% around 1000 a.d in western Europe. From that time on the agricultural world was able to produce the surplus that was needed to let the european cities/city-populations grow and flourish.
I don't like the idea of "advanced ...." sciences/advancements. So let's just call it as I named above and as it is known in the historical world.

2) V the mill
I haven't been able to find anywhere a qoute on the time of the development of
the COGWHEEL
It is clear that in Roman time (and before that) there were mills. It is also clear that because of the adoption of the cogwheel in the construction of mills the versatility and the production of mills increased rapidly. Before that time mills usely had one (horizontal) axle, now it was possible to transfer the movement/power from a horizontal axle to a vertical axle.
Cogwheels in small "miniaturized" (after ~~ metallurgy!!), made the development of refined measuring instruments possible. Which combined with empiricism staggered scientific production.

3) Empiricism + Trias Politica
I would like to see the introduction of the advancement
HUMANISM.
Humanism is a collective term which may stand for all the movements in Europe from the mid 14th century on to the middle of the mid 16th century which loosened the people from the grip of dogmatism (~theology) of the church. The "humanist spirit" made the way free for: the italian renaissance; the explosive growth of science (after all, we discovered that Jerusalem wasn't the centre of the earth and the earth wasn't the centre of the universe, Galileo was initially banned for his work !!...); and it also made the way free for the bible-translations (power(over believe) to the people!!).

In CIV-II we have fundamentalism, Humanism is the opposite of that. In CIV-II the development of religion ends with theology and fundamentalism, with humanism you can link it up with the development of the exact sciences and the development of philosophy.
It's prereq. (according to CIV-II terms) should be theology. It would be the CIV-III-equevalent of CTP's classical education, though more than that !!

Humanism in itself will have no effect on happiness / food / shields or trade production. It should have a "25%+" effect on science-development.
It should be a pivotal basic need, a "conditio sine qua non" for the development of the subsequent advancements like HUMAN RIGHTS ( I like that one !!, (with bi-prereq. PRINTING PRESS ( I like that one too).
EMPIRICISM (I keep , because it's another one I like) (and also with bi-prereq. printing press) in my opinion should be one of the offsprings of humanism. Without empiricism it shouldn't be able to develop sciences like theory of gravity or chemistry (these two I almost every time get from the goody-boxes).
HUMAN RIGHTS would the CIV-III-equevalent of CTP's Age of Reason, the term in itself is more concrete than AoR.. The philosophy and ideal of human rights doesn't come from a classical education, but from a basic idea of human freedom and dignity.
TRIAS POLITICA should appear after human rights.
DEMOCRACY in this line of thinking should derive from human rights with !!! bi-prereq. trias politica.

Another offspring of humanism could be the new advancement of
LAW OF WAR
(with bi-prereq.leadership) which will have to enable the surrendering / capturing / withdrawl of troops (usually in CIV-II you just massacre enemy-troops) (the one exciting thing left to do in a tedious end-game!!), and in the end game POW's.

OOPS.
Now get your pencils and start drawing that tech.tree (nice term, as we say in dutch, it lies smoothly in the mouth "ligt lekker in de mond")

[This message has been edited by Vrank Prins (edited October 06, 2000).]
[This message has been edited by Vrank Prins (edited October 06, 2000).]

[Ribannah]

quote: Originally posted by Rufus T. Firefly on 10-05-2000 08:18 AM Great thread.

Yeah, we seem to be rolling! Could this be made a sticky thread??

> Mass Communication should definitely be included
Telecommunication and TV Networks are supposed to cover this.

> ... allow you to build a wonder called "Hollywood"
Too US-centered IMHO. By far the most movies are produced in India. But places should not be Wonders anyway.

> I'm surprised no one has mentioned: Consumer Society. This allows for the building of malls ...
Hmmm, good one . Not of Top 10 essence, but close.

>University + Democracy should = Public Education ...
I'd prefer an early advance called Teaching allowing Schools as a city improvement. Universities came later. Maybe Compulsory Education could be the wonder you are looking for (school in every city), allowed by ... Humanism?


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If you have no feet, don't walk on fire

[Ribannah]

quote: Originally posted by Vrank Prins on 10-05-2000 01:29 PM

III the plough
Hey! That's 2 votes for The Plough!

THE THREE-FIELDSYSTEM
Since this came together with the (improved) Plough, although just as important there would be no room in the tech tree. Good to mention it, however.

the COGWHEEL
Great find! Should indeed be a prereq for The Mill but is of seperate importance because it also leads to The Clock (Wonder: Big Ben?), a prereq to Industrialization (!).
Hmmm, this is getting more involved by the minute .
Maybe we could have the Cogwheel as tech and the Mill as city improvement (and later the Wind Turbine as power plant). Or maybe we should drop the generalization "Engineering" altogether to make room for Plough, Cogwheel and Mill?

HUMANISM
Had this on my list but didn't quite make my top 10.
I never liked the way the philosophy branch ended either. Above I suggested Compulsory Education as a wonder to go with Humanism, counting as a School in every city,

LAW OF WAR
Doesn't convince me as an advance. I was thinking about a Wonder called "The Geneva Convention" instead. To go with Human Rights as an alternative to The Abolishment of Slavery.

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If you have no feet, don't walk on fire

[Empress]

1. Agricultre - Leads to (Pottery)
2. Alien Technology - Pre. is (Cybernetics & Space Flight)
3. Ballooning - Pre. is (Theory of Gravity & Steam Engine), Leads to (Flight), Allows for (Airships)
4. Biology - Pre. is (Philosphy), Leads to (Medicine)
5. Cybernetics - Pre. is (Genetic Engineering & Robotics)
6. Diplomacy - Pre. is (Writing), Leads to (Literacy)

7. Hover Technology - Pre. is (Magnetism & Electricity), Allows for (Hovercraft)
8. Hygiene - Pre. is (Literacy & Trade), Leads to (Sanitation)
9. Mythology - Pre. is (Mysticism), Leads to (Polytheism)
10. Plumbing - Pre. is (Construction & Pottery), Allows for (Aquaduct)


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Apolyton Empress

"The entire sum of existence is the magic of being needed by just one person" -- Vi Putnam


Do We Have A Possible Love Connection?
Vacation Pics!

[wernazuma]

Ok, quite difficult to get through all this, I haven’t visited this thread for quite a time.


Ribbanah:
OK you’re right, I’ll change Slot Nr.1 in my list
5. BureaucracyI know, no one likes Bureaucracy (yesterday the secretary in the dean’s office of my institute made me almost run amok insisting on formal procedures), but let’s face it: it’s a necessary requirement for every bigger organization. You simply can’t manage a complex society or a big economic enterprise without it, whatever the bad effects of it are. I could imagine that if a Civ exceeds a certain population without having bureaucracy some cities fall off. (But that’s for another thread)
6. Modern Science I came to the opinion that S. Kroeze’s Empiricism explains well what I intended with that.
9. Leisure Industry Of course there has always been such an industry but it was very small before people began to have so much spare-time. As effects I imagine “Disneyland” or something similar as a city improvement that increases happiness and trade. Could also be set aside in favour of your Consumer Society (I really like that one)

S.Kroeze:
I completely agree with you that the Arts are heavily underrepresented in Civ. Maybe we should make an extra thread discussing this.
Trias Politica I agree that this is an advance but if you ask me this is simply integrated in the government forms.
Plough, Plant Domest., Animal Domest. Those three were surely great advances in human history but remember that your tribe starts in 4000BC, a date that has been chosen because it’s the beginning of the first civilizations, and those already knew all of this. These inventions stand at the beginning of a civilization, therefore your tribe already possesses that knowledge at the beginning of the game

Rufus T. Firefly:Public Education is a good idea, but just some comments: a)It doesn’t have to go along with Democracy. In Austria, during Absolutism, Maria Theresia made a public education system and in communist theories public education is a central point (Cuba has the second-best educational system in America after Canada [yes, that was a little offence dear gringos ]). I think Public Education itself should act as school in every city or “Universal Public Education” should be a minor 1-per-civ-wonder.

Some other comments:
The Geneva Convention seems to be a typical dud-wonder to me. Have you ever heard of a fighting country really caring much about that?
Hygiene I don’t think this is really an advance. The cities of the Indus culture, the Minoans etc. had good sanitary system whereas this has not always been that way in later times (look nowadays India)
Mythology Good one. I think I’ll really start a thread on “Arts”-advances and this will surely be in.

That’s it for now I think.

[S. Kroeze]

quote: II. Animal domestication Horseback Riding is already in the tree. Other animals have contributed much less (mainly hunting and entertainment).

Why Animal domestication was one of the most important developments of human history

'They provided meat, milk products, fertilizers, land transport, leather, military assault vehicles, plow traction, and wool, as well as germs that killed previously unexposed peoples.'

'In human societies possessing domestic animals, livestock fed more people in four distinct ways: by furnishing meat, milk, and fertilizer and by pulling plows. First and most directly, domestic animals became the societies' major source of animal protein, replacing wild game. Today, for instance, Americans tend to get most of their animal protein from cows, pigs, sheep, and chickens, with game such as venison just a rare delicacy. In addition, some big domestic mammals served as sources of milk and of milk products such as butter, cheese, and yogurt. Milked mammals include the cow, sheep, goat, horse, reindeer, water buffalo, yak, and Arabian and Bactrian camels. Those mammals thereby yield several times more calories over their lifetime than if they were just slaughtered and consumed as meat.

Big domestic mammals also interacted with domestic plants in two ways to increase crop production. First, as any modern gardener or farmer still knows by experience, crop yields can be greatly increased by manure applied as fertilizer. Even with the modern availability of synthetic fertilizers produced by chemical factories, the major source of crop fertilizer today in most societies is still animal manure -especially of cows, but also of yaks and sheep. Manure has been valuable, too, as a source of fuel for fires in traditional societies.

In addition, the largest domestic mammals interacted with domestic plants to increase food production by pulling plows and thereby making it possible for people to till land that had previously been uneconomical for farming. Those plow animals were the cow, horse, water buffalo, Bali cattle, and yak/cow hybrids. Here is one example of their value: the first prehistoric farmers of central Europe, the so-called Linearbandkeramik culture that arose slightly before 5000BC, were initially confined to soils light enough to be tilled by means of hand-held digging sticks. Only over a thousand years later, with the introduction of the ox-drawn plow, were those farmers able to extend cultivation to a much wider range of heavy soils and tough sods. Similarly, Native American farmers of the North American Great Plains grew crops in the river valleys, but farming of the tough sods on the extensive uplands had to await 19th-century Europeans and their animal-drawn plows.'

'Several domestic animals yielded animal fibers -especially wool from sheep, gaots, llamas, and alpacas, and silk from silkworms. Bones of domestic animals were important raw materials for artifacts of Neolithic peoples before the development of metallurgy. Cow hides were used to make leather.

Big domestic mammals further revolutionized human society by becoming our main means of land transport until the development of railroads in the 19th century. Before animal domestication, the sole means of transporting goods and people by land was on the backs of humans. Large mammals changed that: for the first time in human history, it became possible to move heavy goods in large quantities, as well as people, rapidly overland for long distances. The domestic animals that were ridden were the horse, donkey, yak, reindeer, and Arabian and Bactrian camels. Animals of those same five species, as well as the llama, were used to bear packs. Cows and horses were hitched to wagons, while reindeer and dogs pulled sleds in the Arctic. The horse became the chief means of long-distance transport over most of Eurasia. The three domestic camel species (Arabian camel, Bactrian camel, and llama) played a similar role in areas of North Africa and Arabia, Central Asia, and the Andes, respectively.'

'Of equal importance in wars of conquest were the germs that evolved in human societies with domestic animals. Infectious diseases like smallpox, measles, and flu arose as specialized germs of humans, derived by mutations of very similar ancestral germs that had infected animals. The humans who domesticated animals were the first to fall victim to the newly evolved germs, but those humans then evolved substantial resistance to the new diseases. When such partly immune people came into contact with others who had had no previous exposure to the germs, epidemics resulted in which up to 99 percent of the previously unexposed populaton was killed. Germs thus acquired ultimately from the domestic animals played decisive roles in the European conquests of Native Americans, Australians, South Africans, and Pacific islanders.'
(source: J.Diamond;'Guns, Germs and Steel',1998)

J.Diamond gives the following approximate dates of first attested evidence for domestication of large mammal species:
Dog ~10,000BC
Sheep ~8,000BC
Goat ~8,000BC
Pig ~8,000BC
Cow ~6,000BC
Horse ~4,000BC
Donkey ~4,000BC
Water buffalo 4,000BC
Llama/alpaca 3,500BC
Bactrian camel 2,500BC
Arabian camel 2,500BC

Though some of these dates are contested -especially his date of the domestication of the horse seems rather early- the picture he sketches is generally accepted. I also think he proves in a convincing manner the vital importance of the sheep, goat, cow, pig and horse, his so-called "Major Five". I do not support the view attributing excessive importance to the horse only. When forced to answer the question which animal was most important for human development, I would choose cattle.

Why Horseback Riding was a comparatively late development in human history

Horseback Riding:
'There was no reason, moreover, why Stone Age man should have identified the horse as potentially more useful to him than its equine cousins which we now know lack, for genetic reasons, the potentiality for selective breeding to larger, stronger or faster varieties. The early equus caballus outwardly resembled the still-existent equus przewalskii (Przewalski's horse) and the equus gmelini, the tarpan which survived on the steppe until the last century; all in turn resembled the asses, hemiones and onagers, in colour, size, and shape. Caballus, in particalar, with its short legs, thick neck, pot-belly, convex face and stiff mane must have defied distinction from the tarpan, which apparently resisted before its extinction all efforts to refine its appearance or performance.

Man seems to have approached neither driving nor riding through the horse or its allied equids at all, but via the cow and perhaps the reindeer. Cultivators in the fourth millenniumBC discovered that castrating the male domesticated cow, to produce the ox, gave them a tractable animal that could be harnassed to a simple plough such as men themselves pulled; the attachment of such draught animals to a sledge, in treeless environments like the steppe and the alluvial plains, was a natural development. Mounting the sledge on captive rollers then followed, and from the captive roller the wheel, rotating on a fixed axle as the potter's already did, must have evolved quite simply. A set of pictographs from the Sumerian city of Uruk, dated to the fourth millenniumBC, shows the progression from the sledge to the sledge-on-wheels in a fairly direct line. A famous representation known as the Standard of Ur, of the third millenniumBC, shows a four-wheeled cart drawn by four onagers as a vehicle for a king and a platform for his weapons -axe, sword and spear- on the battlefield. This cart, with its two-piece wooden wheels, descends from the solid-wheeled prototype, and we may suppose that the Sumerians had recognised the onagers as superior draught-animals -faster and more spirited than oxen.

As anyone who has kept a donkey as a childhood pet knows, this lovable animal has severe drawbacks. These characteristics, which no amount of selective breeding succeeds in altering, relegate the ass, with the hemione half-asses, to a menial role. As a beast of burden both its range and load-carrying capacity are limited; as a mount it is an animal of last choice.

It is therefore not surprising that, about the beginning of the second millenniumBC, the domesticated horse should have begun to have its role transformed from that of meat-giver to load-puller. Even the small horses of the wild vary in size, and while small mares of the Stone Age stood less than twelve hands at the shoulders (a hand is four inches), the larger stallion could exceed fifteen hands. Herdsmen had already learnt the rudiments of selective breedign through their management of sheep, goats and cows; to apply it to the horse was a natural step.'
(source: J.Keegan:'A History of Warfare',1993)

'No one knows for sure when the practice of riding on horseback first became normal, nor where. But early representations of horseback-riding show Assyrian soldiers astride.
Men occasionally rode horseback as early as the fourteenth century BC. This is proved by an Egyptian statuette of the Amarna age, now in the Metropolitan Museum in New York. The difficulty of remaining firmly on a horse's back without saddle or stirrups was, however, very great; and especially so if a man tried to use his hands to pull a bow at the same time- or wield some other kind of weapon. For centuries horseback riding therefore remained unimportant in military engagements, though perhaps specially trained messengers used their horses' fleetness to deliver information to army commanders. So, at least, Yadin interprets another, later, representation of a cavalryman in an Egyptian bas-relief recording the Battle of Qadesh(1298BC).'
(source: W.H.McNeill:'The Pursuit of Power',1983)

'By the eighth centuryBC, however, selective breeding had produced a horse that Assyrians could ride from the forward seat, with their weight over the shoulders, and a sufficient mutuality had developed between steed and rider for the man to use a bow while in motion. Mutuality, or perhaps horsemanship, was not so far advanced, all the same, that riders were ready to release the reins: an Assyrian bas-relief shows cavalrymen working in pairs, one shooting his composite bow, the other holding the reins of both horses.'
(source: J.Keegan:'A History of Warfare',1993)

[Zer0_T0lerance]

What about the Internet?

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Zero

[shadow[ROCK]]

We forgot something important;

The spreading of Thoughts (and henceforth Technology)
by travellers, trade, communication.

Many ancient Civilizations adopted useful inventions
made by other for their own use and did't invent that
alone. I am against the simple "Let's swap Tech" thing
in the Diplomacy screen , because if your army is
spiecked with superior Arrows by Superior Bowmen of your Enemy you will definitly get some Bonus for
researching the enemy technology (even when you are
on the loosing side).

[Ribannah]

quote: Why Animal domestication was one of the most important developments of human history 'They provided meat, milk products, fertilizers, land transport, leather, military assault vehicles, plow traction, and wool, as well as germs that killed previously unexposed peoples.' ...

OK, you are using a broader definition of the term than I thought initially. From the dates you provide, however, it appears that the discovery was made before 4000 BC, so it has no place in my "Top 10".

Note btw that meat and leather should not be in the above list of applications as they already came with the older discovery of Hunting.

I have put the advance of "Herding" in the prehistoric era of my complete technology tree. The Plough also got a place. (Germs aren't animals btw, but one could use "domestication" without the restriction to animals.)

quote: Why Horseback Riding was a comparatively late development in human history ... Man seems to have approached neither driving nor riding through the horse or its allied equids at all, but via the cow and perhaps the reindeer.

AFAIK zebra's were used for riding in Africa quite early. Also, I wouldn't be surprised if Horseback Riding had been invented, then forgotten, then re-invented a couple of times as needs and climate changed.

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If you have no feet, don't walk on fire