Welcome to the Digital Atlas of Innovation

Answers and reliable information about these questions and much more can be found quickly in the Atlas.

There is general consensus today that technical innovations are of great importance for economic development. Similarly, the opinion is deeply rooted that this is a modern phenomenon, whereas prehistoric and ancient societies were rooted in their practices and even unreceptive to innovations. Yet, the digital revolution of today is not the first upheaval with which humankind has been confronted. The development of agricultural and animal husbandry 10,000 years ago was a long and tedious process that involved numerous innovations, such as cultivating plants and domesticating cattle, sheep, goats and pigs, producing pottery and building houses. At the end of this process emerged an economic system, which rapidly spread and for thousands of years marked vast parts of Europe.

Likewise, remarkable is the cluster of major technologies that appeared during the 4th millennium BC: the wheel and the wagon, the domestication of the horse, breeding woolly sheep, copper alloying, extracting silver by means of cupellation, the potter’s wheel, the cultivation of olives and wine, script and administration of commodities using seals, building cities and finally forming states. Each and every one of these innovations had considerable social consequences and were determinative for the life of humankind until the 19th century. The speed of the horse remained the pace of history well into modern times. The railway system was the first that enabled an acceleration to hitherto unimaginable rapidity. The development of various copper alloys led from a technique for exclusive prestigious goods to the emergence of an efficient metal industry, upon which the infrastructure of all industrial states is dependent.

Basically, research on major prehistoric technologies has only been practicable for about 25 years. At that time it became possible to calibrate radiocarbon dates by means of tree-ring series. The results led to substantial corrections in chronology, some involving more than 1000 years’ time. Thereby, most dates tended to be distinctly older than before, which thus had a far-reaching effect on the dating of the oldest farming cultures, the development of metallurgy and the oldest wheels and wagons.

This also led to doubts about an old paradigm in archaeology: that all innovations emanated from urban ‘centres’ in Mesopotamia and Egypt outwards to the ‘peripheries’. Today there is considerable doubt about this simple model. Possibly it was not the development of new techniques, but instead their adaption from different ‘peripheries’ and new combination in the ‘centres’, which formed the actual basis for the success of Mesopotamian and Egyptian ‘high cultures’. At present, 25 years after the end of the East-West bloc confrontation, the early history of technical innovations can be researched over a far greater expanse, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, which has already led to multifaceted changes in perspectives.

Our Digital Atlas of Innovations is not merely a compilation of maps that already exist, but instead a databank in which evidence for innovations is gathered and critically evaluated, and from which as many and different maps as desired can be generated. So, find contexts can be included that provide evidence for differentiating among techniques, as in the case, for example, of authentic wooden wheels or miniature wagons made of clay.

Hence, the Digital Atlas of Innovations is a heuristic instrument that not only presents what is known, but also aids in recognising new associations. Through the projection of different techniques at the same time, it will enable differences in dissemination to be recognised, and the distinction of so-called ‘hot spots’ of technical developments from those regions unreceptive to innovations.

Where were those spheres of knowledge at hand that was needed for inventing new technologies?

The Digital Atlas of Innovations is a research tool that we have developed in recent years. The innovations presented here form the beginning of a series, in which further chapters on innovations will appear in the next few months and years. Of importance thereby is the resonance that we receive from users of the Atlas; their contributions are gladly accepted. The attractiveness of the Atlas is enhanced by a rapid growth of data. Therefore, we invite the international archaeological community to participate in this Atlas.

The Atlas is presently limited to older periods of time in Eurasia and Africa, but a global history of knowledge is visualised, which should extend into modern times. Through the immensity of this timespan the Atlas will trace not only the dissemination of technical innovations, but also religious manifestations, for example, burial customs.

The Digital Atlas of Innovations is not only an instrument for research; it is also intended for all those who are interested in the early ages and history of techniques and their social consequences. Therefore, we hope to soon provide the Atlas to museums and to inform the interested public in the near future.

Svend Hansen and Jürgen Renn

Florian Klimscha and Jochen Büttner