Archaeologists Are Reconstructing the 'Invisible' Technologies of the Stone Age

I had one of the best sleeps of my life on a bed of soft sand, in the curve of a dry creek that I really should not have slept in due to flash flood risk. Since then I've wondered if ancient people might have made mattresses of sand, but they were so simple and evanescent that they left no trace.

There is a great quote: "The Egyptians built using stone but wrote day to day on papyrus. The Sumerians built with mud and wrote on clay tablets. This is why we have lots of Egyptians buildings but not much of their writing and the opposite with the Sumerians."

Of important note, they don't mean the NYC AI company https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_Technologies .

Let me guess, it's the boring stuff.

It would be in fact quite amusing if the technology the Neolithians were actually most proud of had nothing to do with stone, just didn’t last. Better fabrics? Waterproof clothing? Elaborate wooden tools made using “dumb” stone ones?

If you've never watched Clickspring's Youtube videos you're in for a treat. He has a long-running series where he works to make a new Antikythera mechanism using ancient (bronze age) technologies. He's a master machinist, so he has fabulous insight into workholding, precision, etc. https://www.youtube.com/show/VLPLZioPDnFPNsHnyxfygxA0to4RXv4... His skeleton clock build is one of my favorite pieces of internet content ever, up there with Bartoz's gorgeous webpages: https://ciechanow.ski/cameras-and-lenses/

Rope is one thing that I wonder how to make from scratch if you'd be dropped somewhere in nature. I know it's about weaving plant fibers, but, how can it get so long?

• WalterBright · 9 minutes ago

  I've wondered the same thing. The fibers aren't that long.

• MSFT_Edging · 6 minutes ago

  Same way you weave together yarn. The individual fibers bind together with weaving and friction and form a longer chain.