U.S. Technology: History

Lesson 1: Introduction and Early Technology

Geographical Regions

The reading for this section of the lesson will come from the first section of Cowan’s first chapter titled “The Land, the Natives, and the Settlers.” The page numbers are 5-10; read up to the section titled “The European Settlers.”

Cowan starts off the chapter by stating that the most unique thing about North America (usually the term for the United States and Canada) is the amazing geographical differences that are found here. This one continent spans the distance between two oceans and covers as Cowan puts it “at least a dozen very different ecological regions.” In this span are three different climate zones; semitropical, temperate, and semiarctic.

This land has been inhabited by humans since around 10,000 BC, or about the same time that cultures were starting to inhabit Egypt and Mesopotamia. The earliest inhabitants were in Alaska, and they moved on throughout the continent from there. It was this migration to different parts of the continent that spurred the invention of various technologies to assist in the adaptation to the different geographical regions. It is important to note that the word technology can be used in the most basic sense. Technology, at this time, was most likely whatever it was they came up with to help them obtain food, clothing, and shelter.

Once these inhabitants spread out over the continent they found an incredible array of geographical areas to settle, and naturally depending on where they settled the technology they used would be different. For example, the preferred material for housing and clothing for the inhabitants of what is now the Southwestern United States, would be different than what the inhabitants of the East Coast would use, and that would be different than what the inhabitants of the Great Lake region would use. They also had to have different technologies to hunt and gather in the Prairies than they did in the Rocky Mountains, or along the Coast of the Atlantic Ocean.

Some of the natives became nomads and moved from one region to another, as they did this they spread out their technological know-how through the area. This allowed the inhabitants of other regions to learn from it, and adapt it to their own special needs. They brought along their own skills of making clothes and hunting and picked up other skills of weaving etc. This allowed for a geographical adaptation of many technologies.

To gain more from this section consider reading pages 5- 10 of Cowan’s book and think about what technologies there were at this time, and how they may have differed from one region to the other. Think about what nomads may have brought to each region and what technologies would not lend themselves to other regions, such as seal harpooning would not be a useful manner of hunting in Arizona.

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