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All right who's in the mood for a quick timeline of the [Timeline appears]

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last 10,000 years? Yeah we know we're really fun at parties. All righty here we

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go the four major periods of human technological history, period one. It was

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the time of the hunter-gatherer, this earliest period started around 2.6

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million years ago what a hunter-gatherer human beings do all day? They use simple [Wild Boar is hit by a spear]

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tools to hunt and to gather.. shockingly no, our early ancestors didn't have much to work

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with but they made some righteous discoveries all the same, like well you

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know how about fire. Yeah that's a good one, and of course there was clothing, the

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bow and arrow, fishing, carving, painting and oh yes the wheel. Yep, all this came

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from the hunter-gatherer age well next came the age of agricultural craftsmen.

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This period stretched from about 10,000 BCE the era of the first human farms to

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the Industrial Revolution, you know that's quite a stretch. Well this giant [Man stretching on yoga mat]

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slice of time includes all the great civilizations of the ancient world,

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Greece, Egypt, China and Rome not to mention all that Middle Ages Renaissance stuff that

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went down with plague in Europe. Well during this period technology allowed us

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to settle down build up communities and explore the world. We got chariots, [Speedboat zooms across the Sea]

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pottery, gunpowder, ships, plows windmills, and water mills and books. I've gotta say

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were partial to that last invention here at Shmoop. Well next up was the

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Industrial Age kicked off by the Industrial Revolution well it started

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around 1750 and lasted into the 20th century, really it's us pretty much still

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rocking our world. We've moved past old superstitions and learned to control [Construction workers playing instruments]

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energy. Coal, steam and electric power became the new masters of our lifestyle.

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Factories allowed us to produce goods in huge cheap quantities, we didn't have to

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make everything by hand anymore. So the Industrial Age gave us refrigerators,

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radios, trains, telegraphs, x-rays, cars and oh this little thing called the ability [Superman looking upset]

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to fly. Well contrary to the hopes of some human flight came in the form of

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aircraft not rocket suits but ya know we can dream. And of course we have to

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mention the age in which we're now leaving, it'd be kind of rude not to do

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that right? What's called a post-industrial age what have we modern

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humans accomplished thus far? Well we've made computers, networks, atomic energy [Caveman holding old cart wheel and office worker holding new car wheel]

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spaceships, robotic pets and well the list keeps growing by the day. Hard to say

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when the post-industrial age started eh, maybe the end of World War II, 1945s a

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good starting point as any. That's when atomic weapons made everyone stand back

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and say whoa yeah, we'll never look at mushrooms the same again. [Nuclear bomb explosion]

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