From Hand to Handle
The First Industrial Revolution
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Oxford University Press
Published:19th Sep '13
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
Mankind's utter dependency on technology extends back approximately three million years to the first stone tools, but it was only with the innovation of hafting, some 300,000 years ago, that technology took its first modern form and revolutionized our social and economic lives. The development of handles and shafts, which were added to some tools previously made of single materials and hand-held, made the tools not only more efficient but improved their makers' chances of survival by making the quest for food more productive. This volume brings together evidence for the cognitive, social, and technological foundations necessary for the development of hafting to form a speculative theory about this revolutionary innovation. The creation of tools with handles required considerable planning based on an expert understanding of the properties of the raw materials involved, a form of early engineering. Yet it was the ability to envisage the final, integrated form of the tool which underpinned the remarkable novelty of hafting, one which had massive implications for the human species and which laid the foundations for the technology we rely on today.
From hand to handle by LAWRENCE BARHAM is a remarkable compilation of a huge range of topics. * David R. Braun, Antiquity *
The book is built upon a coherent and logical structure and written in appealing language, approachable for wide audiences. * Malgorzata Anna Kot, European Journal of Archaeology *
ISBN: 9780199604715
Dimensions: 222mm x 171mm x 27mm
Weight: 658g
372 pages