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From hand to handle: the first industrial revolution

从手到手柄：第一次工业革命

基本信息

批准号：
AH/I02528X/1
负责人：
Lawrence Stephen Barham
金额：
$ 4.51万
依托单位：
University of Liverpool
依托单位国家：
英国
项目类别：
Fellowship
财政年份：
2011
资助国家：
英国
起止时间：
2011 至无数据
项目状态：
已结题

来源：
https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=AH%2FI02528X%2F1
关键词：
hand handle first industrial revolution

项目摘要

As humans we are all utterly dependent on technology for our survival. We rely on tools to feed and protect ourselves, but they are also deeply embedded in our everyday social lives. Just try living without your mobile phone or internet access, the espresso machine or a knife and fork and you will soon appreciate the social importance of 'things'. For more than two million years we have evolved physically and socially and tools have been an integral part of our becoming human. Even though archaeologists know a lot about how tools were made, we understand little about how and why changes in technology happened. Trial and error and necessity might be all we need to consider, plus that rare eureka moment of invention. In reality the process of technological change was likely to have been more complex, at least in the recent evolutionary past, and that complexity can be seen all around us today. W.B. Arthur, a 'complexity theorist' (The Nature of Technology, 2009) observes that all modern technology works on the principle of 'combinatorial evolution' in which multiple parts are integrated to make a tool, and each of these parts is a tool in its own right and each component is made by other tools which involve other tools, and so on. A random selection of contemporary objects such as a pencil, iPhone, or the Large Hadron Collider illustrates the principle at work, as do basic materials, such as paper, plastic and steel which are themselves made by machinery composed of multiple interacting components. Tools beget tools in an almost self-generating process. Combinatorial evolution speeds the process of innovation with the potential for endless novel combinations of parts to emerge as creative solutions to problems. These new combinations will in turn generate supporting technologies and news fields of expertise. Our growing dependence on the internet for organising our social and economic lives typifies the revolutionary potential of combinatorial evolution as spin-offs, such as apps, emerge at an ever increasing rate. The speed of change is breathtaking, especially from an archaeologist's perspective.The aim of this study, 'From Hand to Handle', is to trace the archaeological origins of the combinatorial principle, to find out when and where it emerged and to try and understand the social and environmental conditions that spurred its development and spread. At the moment, some of the earliest evidence for tools made from multiple working parts (cutting edges mounted on handles or shafts) comes from the period between 400,000 and 250,000 years ago in Europe, Africa and possibly Asia. This period predates the appearance of our species, Homo sapiens, and it's not clear where exactly the technology began or if it was developed independently by more than one group of early humans and then spread throughout the world. The Hand to Handle project examines the archaeological evidence from each continent to try and resolve the issue of its origin, but also looks at genetic and fossil evidence to determine when early humans had developed enough brain power to imagine new kinds of tools made from multilple parts and different materials. The kind of hierarchical thought involved in envisaging composite tools was also involved in the evolution of language, with the two processes being inextricably linked.Once developed, composite technology diversified into new forms as illustrated by archaeological examples drawn from the period after 120,000 years ago. The project also involves the study of ethnographic collections of hafted tools held in museums in the UK and USA. These historic artefacts reveal the range of composite tools made by hunter-gatherers from the tropics to the arctic, highlighting the importance of the combinatorial principle in enabling humans to colonise the globe. The project results will be published as a book by Oxford University Press.

作为人类，我们的生存完全依赖于技术。我们依靠工具来养活和保护自己，但它们也深深植根于我们的日常社会生活中。试着过没有手机、没有网络、没有咖啡机、没有刀叉的生活，你很快就会体会到“物”的社会重要性。两百多万年来，我们的身体和社会都在进化，工具是我们成为人类不可或缺的一部分。尽管考古学家对工具是如何制造的了解很多，但我们对技术变化是如何发生的以及为什么发生的却知之甚少。我们需要考虑的可能只有反复试验和必要性，再加上罕见的发明发现时刻。实际上，技术变革的过程可能更加复杂，至少在最近的进化过程中是这样，而这种复杂性今天在我们周围随处可见。“复杂性理论家”W.B. Arthur（《技术的本质》，2009）观察到，所有现代技术的工作原理都是“组合进化”，其中多个部分被整合成一个工具，其中每个部分本身就是一个工具，每个组件由其他工具组成，这些工具涉及其他工具，等等。随机选择的当代物品，如铅笔、iPhone或大型强子对撞机，说明了这一原理在起作用，基本材料，如纸、塑料和钢铁，本身就是由多种相互作用的部件组成的机器制造的。工具产生工具的过程几乎是自生成的。组合进化加速了创新的过程，有可能出现无数新颖的部件组合，从而成为解决问题的创造性解决方案。这些新的组合将反过来产生支持性技术和新的专业领域。我们越来越依赖互联网来组织我们的社会和经济生活，这体现了组合进化的革命性潜力，因为应用程序等衍生产品正以越来越快的速度出现。变化的速度是惊人的，尤其是从考古学家的角度来看。这项名为“从手到柄”的研究的目的是追溯组合原则的考古起源，找出它出现的时间和地点，并试图了解刺激其发展和传播的社会和环境条件。目前，由多个工作部件（安装在手柄或轴上的切割边缘）制成的工具的一些最早证据来自40万至25万年前的欧洲、非洲，可能还有亚洲。这一时期早于我们智人的出现，目前尚不清楚这项技术究竟是从哪里开始的，也不清楚它是否由多个早期人类群体独立开发，然后传播到世界各地。“手握”项目检查了来自各大洲的考古证据，试图解决它的起源问题，但也研究了遗传和化石证据，以确定早期人类何时发展出足够的脑力，能够想象出由多个部分和不同材料制成的新型工具。在设想复合工具时所涉及的层次思想也涉及语言的进化，这两个过程是密不可分的。从12万年前以后的考古例子中可以看出，复合技术一旦发展起来，就会出现新的形式。该项目还涉及在英国和美国的博物馆举行的有柄工具的民族志收藏的研究。这些具有历史意义的人工制品揭示了从热带到北极狩猎采集者制造的复合工具的范围，突出了组合原则在使人类殖民全球方面的重要性。该项目的研究成果将由牛津大学出版社出版成书。