Abadoned Technologies

tallwingedgoat

There are many WI threads on technology being adopted where it was not. However history is full of instances where societies abandoned known technologies for inexplicable reasons. Jared Diamond's book offers a sample of the phenomenon. The bow and arrow were abandoned by several peoples from the Australian aborigines to Polynesians and some Inuits. Other Inuits abandoned the dog and sled. Bone tools were abandoned by the Australian aborigines, and some Pacific Islanders abandoned the canoe. Most Polynesians gave up pottery. The Mesoamericans gave up the wheel. Of course post-Rome Europeans abandoned many things, among which cement. The Chinese gave up the mechanical clock and water powered spinning wheels. The Japanese famously abandoned the musket.

What other technologies could be conceivably abandoned by specific cultures at specific times?
 

Pachac

The Chinese were burning coal when Marco Polo was in Peking, but as is chinese tradition, never went beyond that and attempted to make a comustion engine. The Chinese are probably the greatest example. The technology was there, they just weren't interested.
 

Riain

Banned
The Gallic Reaper was abondoned during Roman times never to return.

The Dark Ages is all about wholesale abondonment of everything, it took a long time before stone and masonary building and things like waterwheel started being used again.
 

Hyperbolus

Wheeled vehicles were abandoned in much of the Middle East following the rise of the Islamic Empire and were replaced by Camels. Irrigation systems went unmaintained or were destroyed outright in Mesopotamia, Mesoamerica and parts of Iberia during periods of chaos and protracted warfare in the late middle ages. The conquerors, Mongols in the first instance and Castillians in the latter two were largely pastoralists.
Also the late Ming dynasty in China substantially banned large ocean going ships.
 

ChucK Y

Most of the cases of abandonment are not particularly inexplicable. Societal disruption, destruction of infrastructure and trade, and groups too small to reliably pass on all skills explain most of the examples.
 

Pachac

Faeelin said:
Well that's a complex issue, ain't it? There were plenty of clocks in China by the time of McCartney's mission, especially in the Yangzi Delta and along the southern coast.
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Yes, yet the Chinese never devised an effecient, accurate calender, did they? Innovation was never China's strong point. If it was, the Portugese would have seen internal combustion engine powered ships in Canton.
 

Faeelin

Banned
ImmortalImpi said:
Yes, yet the Chinese never devised an effecient, accurate calender, did they? Innovation was never China's strong point. If it was, the Portugese would have seen internal combustion engine powered ships in Canton.
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They managed to adopt Jesuit astronomical teachings, no? And I note that nobody calls Europe stagnant because it wasn't using cast iron until the 18th century on a scale China had centuries before...
 
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Don Lardo

ImmortalImpi said:
Innovation was never China's strong point.
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Anyone have that double facepalm picture handy?

ChucK Y said:
Most of the cases of abandonment are not particularly inexplicable. Societal disruption, destruction of infrastructure and trade, and groups too small to reliably pass on all skills explain most of the examples.
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This.

The archaeological record, for example, is littered with "advanced" pottery styles/techniques which developed, produced, and then seemingly abandoned only to be "reinvented" at some later date. The famous Jomon pottery is one example of this and the Portland Vase another albeit in glass working.

Another example of an abandoned technology may be bricks. I've read a few times, but haven't been able to really verify, that bricks weren't manufactured in Britain between the withdrawal of the Roman legions and the mid-17th Century.

Finally, there are a huge number of examples of technologies being developed by individuals or small groups only to be "lost" upon their death. There was a fellow who air conditioned Britain's Houses of Parliament during the reign of Jame I or Charles I only to pack up his equipment and go home when he didn't get the money he was asking for.

Technological advances like the air conditioning story above made by "court magicians", priests, alchemists, astrologers, and the like were almost always "lost" because those advances were closely controlled secrets labeled as "magic" or "miracles". Hero of Alexandria's many advances, real or suspected, were "lost" in this manner because his "customers" were almost always the priests of Alexandria's many temples vying with each other for worshipers and their donations.
 

marl_d

the Chinese were innovative...they just didn't like change large scale, and thats probably why many inventions either stayed curiosities or fell by the wayside
 
LordVetinari

LordVetinari

Don Lardo said:
Anyone have that double facepalm picture handy?
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images
 

Faeelin

Banned
marl_d said:
the Chinese were innovative...they just didn't like change large scale, and thats probably why many inventions either stayed curiosities or fell by the wayside
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Which ones are you thinking of?

I mean, we're talking about a society that used printing frequently enough to develop a porn industry.
 

marl_d

largely the ones mentioned above, deep water sailing technologies.

They invented stuff and pushed forwards, but extremely slowly and sometimes for technologies to really leap forward the society in general needs to be one that pushes, thus why the Romans, Greeks and the US have made big strides, however they get burnout quickly too.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think that the Chinese didn't push, but have done so at a much slower pace in general. Though there are times that they did push forward they aren't many and are usually done because of outside pressure (Mongles, Ming, Europeans, American's) rather than internal pressure to expand that drove the Greeks, Romans, Europeans and American's
 

Dathi THorfinnsson

Not sure most of these are 'inexplicable'.

tallwingedgoat said:
There are many WI threads on technology being adopted where it was not. However history is full of instances where societies abandoned known technologies for inexplicable reasons. Jared Diamond's book offers a sample of the phenomenon. The bow and arrow were abandoned by several peoples from the Australian aborigines to Polynesians and some Inuits.
Click to expand...
- Did their ancestors actually have bow and arrow? That is a Neolithic invention that seems to have happened several places, but doesn't exist anywhere in the Palaeolithic, AFAIK.
- "Inuits" is an invalid word. "Inuit" is already plural (the singular is "inuk", IIRC). It's the equivalent of saying mens or oxens....

tallwingedgoat said:
Other Inuits abandoned the dog and sled. Bone tools were abandoned by the Australian aborigines, and some Pacific Islanders abandoned the canoe. Most Polynesians gave up pottery.
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Easter Islanders abandoned the canoe because they ran out of trees they could use for building them. AFAIK.
Pottery requires clay - was there decent clay on the islands were pottery was abandoned? Maybe there was, I don't know.

tallwingedgoat said:
The Mesoamericans gave up the wheel. Of course post-Rome Europeans abandoned many things, among which cement.
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Mesoamericans had wheels? Aside from toys? If not, how could they 'give them up'? If so, I've never heard of them.

tallwingedgoat said:
The Chinese gave up the mechanical clock and water powered spinning wheels. The Japanese famously abandoned the musket.
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As has been pointed out, the Chinese didn't abandon clocks, they just didn't advance them. And the Japanese musket thing was a very deliberate piece of social engineering.



Edit: Oops, sorry for the necromancy. I was reading this thread and forgot it was old.
 
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