It is known that hallmark The great ape represents a representative of the human race in terms of brain mass, namely 750 g. This is how much is necessary for a child to master speech. Ancient people spoke in a primitive language, but their speech is a qualitative difference between the highest nervous activity as a person from the instinctive behavior of animals. The word, which became a designation of actions, labor operations, objects, and subsequently generalizing concepts, acquired the status the most important means communication.
Stages of human development
It is known that there are three of them, namely:
- the oldest representatives of the human race;
- modern generation.
This article is devoted exclusively to the 2nd of the above stages.
History of Ancient Man
About 200 thousand years ago, the people we call Neanderthals appeared. They occupied an intermediate position between representatives of the most ancient kind and 1st modern man. Ancient people were a very heterogeneous group. A study of a large number of skeletons led to the conclusion that, in the process of the evolution of Neanderthals against the background of structural diversity, 2 lines were determined. The first was focused on powerful physiological development. Visually, the most ancient people were distinguished by a low, strongly sloping forehead, a low back of the head, a poorly developed chin, a continuous supraorbital ridge, and large teeth. They had very powerful muscles, despite the fact that their height was no more than 165 cm. The mass of their brain had already reached 1500 g. Presumably, ancient people used rudimentary articulate speech.
The second line of Neanderthals had more refined features. They had significantly smaller brow ridges, a more developed chin protuberance, and thin jaws. We can say that the second group was significantly inferior in physical development first. However, they already showed a significant increase in the volume of the frontal lobes of the brain.
The second group of Neanderthals fought for their existence through the development of intra-group connections in the process of hunting, protection from an aggressive natural environment, enemies, in other words, by combining the forces of individual individuals, and not through the development of muscles, like the first.
As a result of this evolutionary path, the species Homo sapiens appeared, which translates as “Homo sapiens” (40-50 thousand years ago).
It is known that for a short period of time the life of ancient man and the first modern man was closely interconnected. Subsequently, the Neanderthals were finally supplanted by the Cro-Magnons (the first modern people).
Types of ancient people
Due to the vastness and heterogeneity of the group of hominids, it is customary to distinguish the following varieties of Neanderthals:
- ancient (early representatives who lived 130-70 thousand years ago);
- classical (European forms, the period of their existence 70-40 thousand years ago);
- survivalists (lived 45 thousand years ago).
Neanderthals: daily life, activities
Fire played an important role. For many hundreds of thousands of years, man did not know how to make fire himself, which is why people supported the one that was formed due to a lightning strike or a volcanic eruption. Moving from place to place, the fire was carried in special “cages” by the most strong people. If it was not possible to save the fire, then this quite often led to the death of the entire tribe, since they were deprived of a means of heating in the cold, a means of protection from predatory animals.
Subsequently, they began to use it for cooking food, which turned out to be more tasty and nutritious, which ultimately contributed to the development of their brain. Later, people themselves learned to make fire by cutting sparks from stone into dry grass, quickly rotating a wooden stick in their palms, placing one end in a hole in dry wood. It was this event that became one of the most important achievements of man. It coincided in time with the era of great migrations.
The daily life of ancient man boiled down to the fact that the entire primitive tribe hunted. For this purpose, men were engaged in the manufacture of weapons and stone tools: chisels, knives, scrapers, awls. Mostly males hunted and butchered the carcasses of killed animals, that is, all the hard work fell on them.
Female representatives processed skins and collected (fruits, edible tubers, roots, and branches for fire). This led to the emergence of a natural division of labor by gender.
To catch large animals, men hunted together. This required mutual understanding between primitive people. During the hunt, a driving technique was common: the steppe was set on fire, then the Neanderthals drove a herd of deer and horses into a trap - a swamp, an abyss. Next, all they had to do was finish off the animals. There was another technique: they shouted and made noise to drive the animals onto thin ice.
We can say that the life of ancient man was primitive. However, it was the Neanderthals who were the first to bury their dead relatives, laying them on their right side, placing a stone under their head and bending their legs. Food and weapons were left next to the body. Presumably they considered death to be a dream. Burials and parts of sanctuaries, for example, associated with the bear cult, became evidence of the emergence of religion.
Neanderthal tools
They differed slightly from those used by their predecessors. However, over time, the tools of ancient people became more complex. The newly formed complex gave rise to the so-called Mousterian era. As before, tools were made primarily of stone, but their shapes became more diverse, and the turning technique became more complex.
The main weapon preparation is a flake formed as a result of chipping from a core (a piece of flint that has special platforms from which the chipping was carried out). This era was characterized by approximately 60 types of weapons. All of them are variations of 3 main ones: scraper, rubeltsa, pointed tip.
The first is used in the process of butchering an animal carcass, processing wood, and tanning hides. The second is a smaller version of the hand axes of the previously existing Pithecanthropus (they were 15-20 cm in length). Their new modifications had a length of 5-8 cm. The third weapon had a triangular outline and a point at the end. They were used as knives for cutting leather, meat, wood, and also as daggers and dart and spear tips.
In addition to the listed species, Neanderthals also had the following: scrapers, incisors, piercings, notched, and serrated tools.
Bone also served as the basis for their manufacture. Very few fragments of such specimens have survived to this day, and entire tools can be seen even less frequently. Most often these were primitive awls, spatulas, and points.
The tools differed depending on the types of animals that Neanderthals hunted, and, consequently, on the geographical region and climate. Obviously, African tools were different from European ones.
Climate of the area where Neanderthals lived
The Neanderthals were less fortunate with this. They found a strong cold snap and the formation of glaciers. Neanderthals, unlike Pithecanthropus, who lived in an area similar to the African savanna, lived rather in the tundra and forest-steppe.
It is known that the first ancient man, just like his ancestors, mastered caves - shallow grottoes, small sheds. Subsequently, buildings appeared located on open space(at a site on the Dniester, the remains of a dwelling made from the bones and teeth of a mammoth were found).
Hunting of ancient people
Neanderthals mainly hunted mammoths. He did not live to this day, but everyone knows what this beast looks like, since rock paintings with its image were found, painted by people of the Late Paleolithic. In addition, archaeologists have found the remains (sometimes even the entire skeleton or carcasses in permafrost soil) of mammoths in Siberia and Alaska.
To catch such a large beast, the Neanderthals had to work hard. They dug pit traps or drove the mammoth into a swamp so that it would get stuck in it, then finish it off.
Also a game animal was the cave bear (it is 1.5 times larger than our brown one). If a large male rose on his hind legs, then he reached 2.5 m in height.
Neanderthals also hunted bison, bison, reindeer, and horses. From them it was possible to obtain not only the meat itself, but also bones, fat, and skin.
Methods of making fire by Neanderthals
There are only five of them, namely:
1. Fire plow. This is a fairly fast method, but requires significant physical effort. The idea is to move a wooden stick along the board with a strong pressure. The result is shavings, wood powder, which, due to the friction of wood against wood, heats up and smolders. At this point, it is combined with highly flammable tinder, then the fire is fanned.
2. Fire drill. The most common way. A fire drill is a wooden stick that is used to drill into another stick (a wooden plank) located on the ground. As a result, smoldering (smoking) powder appears in the hole. Next, it is poured onto the tinder, and then the flame is fanned. Neanderthals first rotated the drill between their palms, and later the drill (with its upper end) was pressed into the tree, covered with a belt and pulled alternately on each end of the belt, rotating it.
3. Fire pump. This is a fairly modern, but rarely used method.
4. Fire saw. It is similar to the first method, but the difference is that the wooden plank is sawed (scraped) across the fibers, and not along them. The result is the same.
5. Carving fire. This can be done by hitting one stone against another. As a result, sparks are formed that fall on the tinder, subsequently igniting it.
Finds from the Skhul and Jebel Qafzeh caves
The first is located near Haifa, the second is in the south of Israel. They are both located in the Middle East. These caves are famous for the fact that the remains of people (bones) were found in them, which were closer to modern people than to the ancients. Unfortunately, they belonged to only two individuals. The age of the finds is 90-100 thousand years. In this regard, we can say that a person modern look coexisted with Neanderthals for many millennia.
Conclusion
The world of ancient people is very interesting and has not yet been fully studied. Perhaps, over time, new secrets will be revealed to us that will allow us to look at it from a different point of view.
First the hunter had to find suitable stone. He already knew which stones made the best tools, and sometimes he went far from the site in search of the required material(see article ““). He used a round pebble as a chipper, which he used to methodically hit the stone. 
By accurately calculating the direction of the blows, he could give the weapon the required shape. So, the ancient master knocked off several large fragments from the stone in order to give his product a very rough shape. If a stone split in the wrong place, he had to start all over again. He then used the animal's bone as a hammer, using it to chip away small flakes from the edge of the stone. Now the weapon has acquired a very thin and sharp cutting edge. Shards of stone were used to cut meat. This finished weapon is called ax. It has a pointed end, a sharp cutting edge and a rounded base that fits in the palm of the hunter.
History of guns
The first stone axes (left) were used for a variety of purposes. Later, people began to make more specialized tools and stopped using such axes. About a million years ago, people made large axes with blunt ends. Their edges were very roughly processed, and these tools were used mainly for digging and for dismembering animal carcasses. This sharp-edged ax (right) was made about 300,000 years ago. As you can see, its cutting edge is hewn very skillfully. With such a tool it was possible to skin animals, as well as cut or scrape meat from bones (read the article ““). Over time, primitive people learned to make a wide variety of tools from fragments of stones. This is a weapon called scraper(left), was used for planing sticks from which wooden spears were made. About 40,000 years ago, people began making sharp knife-like blades from broken rocks (right). In addition, they made chisel-shaped incisors, with the help of which they gave the desired shape to bone needles and spear tips made from deer antlers. The Paleolithic, or Old Stone Age, lasted from 2.5 million to 10,000 years ago. About 40,000 years ago, people stopped making hand axes and began making all their tools from shards of stone.
The special grip of a person
A person can connect his thumb with average and index fingers. Such a grip is unique to humans. Chimpanzees and other primates are only able to squeeze their palm, grabbing an object with all fingers at once (see article ““). Thanks to this grip, a person can hold objects with his fingertips. This allows him to make tools that require very fine processing and perform complex manipulations with them. Chimpanzees sometimes use very simple hand-made tools. For example, they clear leaves from twigs and use them to remove larvae from termite nests.
Historians have determined the time of the appearance of the first man on Earth - this happened about 2.5 million years ago: then he was still covered with hair and did not have his own tongue. He is called “homo habilis” or australopithecus. About one and a half million years ago, he was replaced by “skillful man” - more developed and with the rudiments of culture.
How ancient people lived: everyday life
It was impossible to survive alone in harsh conditions, so people united in communities where they collective work. They had common tools, and the spoils were also divided among all members of the community. Thanks to this device, it became possible to transfer knowledge from generation to generation: older members of the community taught the younger members the necessary skills, if new information appeared, it was added to the already known - this is how it accumulated.
Tools and fire
The tools of labor of ancient people were quite primitive: the main tools were made of stone, which was then used to process wood and bone. From stones, breaking off pieces of the desired shape and size, primitive people made scrapers, choppers and spears, which replaced just a sharpened stick. The dishes were mainly hollowed out from wood or animal bones. Later, man learned to weave baskets and nets for catching fish. While excavating sites of ancient people, archaeologists obtained a lot of important finds, from which these facts were reconstructed.
At that time, people already used fire, but still could not make it, so the fires were carefully preserved.
Rice. 1. Ancient man makes fire.
Hunting and gathering
Labor already at this stage was divided into women's and men's. The weaker ones, women, were engaged in gathering, looking for herbs, roots and berries in the forest, as well as bird eggs, larvae, snails, etc. Men went hunting. How did ancient people hunt?
They not only used raids, but also dug traps and made traps.
Both hunting and gathering are appropriative forms of economy that forced tribes to a nomadic way of life: having devastated one area, they moved to another. When the bow and arrows appeared, more food began to be obtained, and devastation occurred faster. In addition, the parking lots had to be located close to the water, and this complicated the search for a new place. Thus, conditions forced people to move from an appropriating form to a producing one.
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Rice. 2. Primitive hunter.
Agriculture and cattle breeding
First, people began to domesticate animals, and they were the first to domesticate the dog, which later helped herd herds and hunt, and also guarded the house. Then pigs, goats and sheep were domesticated. Having mastered the skills of breeding them, the ancient man was able to have a large cattle. The herds were also communal.
The horse was the last to be domesticated - this happened around the 4th century BC. e. The very first, according to archaeological evidence, were the tribes living in the western part of the Eurasian steppes.
Women did farming. The planting process looked like this: the earth was loosened with a digging stick, where the seeds of local plants were thrown useful plants. Later, this primitive tool was replaced by a shovel, which was made from wood using a stone scraper, then it was replaced by a hoe: a stick with a branch, and then a stick with a sharp stone tied to it.
The emergence of Neanderthals
This type of human appeared about 200 thousand years ago. By this time, man had already learned to make fire, his life became more ritualized. Due to the onset of the Ice Age, people moved to live in caves, they developed crafts, for example, tanning skins from which they made fur coats. During the same period, art was born: drawings made by the hand of primitive man were still very primitive - just stripes and lines, but soon images of animals also appeared. Neanderthals did not have such a developed form of communication as writing.
Rice. 3. Neanderthal.
Neanderthals went extinct 30 thousand years ago, and the reason for this is still not known. The main version is displacement by more developed Cro-Magnons, “reasonable people.”
What have we learned?
From an article on the topic “Ancient people” (grade 5) we learned that, according to archaeologists, the most ancient people, according to the history of their origin, went through four stages of development from Homo erectus to Homo sapiens. They had primitive tools and weapons, they were engaged first in appropriating and then in producing forms of activity, and they lived in communities.
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summary of other presentations“The Lifestyle of Ancient Man” - Mastery of Fire. The oldest weapons labor. Fire. The earliest people. Human Origins. Flakes. Ancient people. Animal bones. Mastery of fire changed human life. Tribes. Austalopithecus. Pithecanthropus. Teacher's story. Small pieces. Hunting of ancient people.
“People of the Ancient World” - Together it was not only easier and safer to hunt, but also to survive in difficult conditions. Primitive people already walked on two legs. Primitive human herd. Our most ancient ancestors were very similar to monkeys. The herd consisted of 25 - 40 individuals. Not every stone was suitable for chopping. Everything was divided equally. Hunters came up with various cunning traps, for example, holes covered with brushwood. Alone, man was powerless in the fight against large animals.
"The Life of Ancient Man" - The Origin of Man. How did ancient people differ from animals? Pithecanthropus. Hunting of ancient people. Friction. Fire. Austalopithecus. Flakes. The most ancient people. The most ancient tools. Mastery of fire. People lived in herds. Chopped. Needles and awl. Use of fire.
“Ancient people on Earth” - A method of producing fire. The most ancient tools. The use of fire changed people's lives. Animal bones. Flakes. Tribes. Hunting of ancient people. Choose the correct answer. Human Origins. Chopped. Lesson assignment. Austalopithecus. The most ancient people. Mastery of fire. Place of your home.
“Types of ancient people” - Stone tools found along with human bones in Dmanisi. Paranthropus robustus. Homo sapiens. Neanderthal culture. Sahelanthropus tchadensis. Height and width are about 10 cm. There has been some confusion in popular literature. Paranthropus, or. Sapiens Invasion. The Heidelbergers, apparently, already owned throwing weapons. Homo habilis. Genetic analysis. Australopithecus garhi.
"The First Ancient People" - The Use of Fire. Many tribes. If the fire went out, the culprits were expelled. Pithecanthropus. Austalopithecines were small in stature. Australopithecus lived in trees. The most ancient people. The first people appeared in east africa. Human Origins. Tools. The choppers were fragile. The most ancient tools. Hunting of ancient people. Mastery of fire. Flakes. Lesson assignment. Needles and awl.
The human environment has a long history. It originates at the dawn of mankind, in the Stone Age, when primitive man made the first tools for labor, protection and food production: a hand ax, a scraper, and later a stone axe, a bow and arrows. The tools of primitive man were far from perfect, but with their help, man embarked on the path of his development, the path of discoveries and inventions, which, in turn, led to the creation of more advanced tools, household items, jewelry, and ultimately to all that , what is called today the word “design”.
The history of design is inextricably linked with the evolution of the human environment, especially the history of the development of technology.
The first tools of human labor. First concepts of convenience
The age of the oldest tools, as archaeological excavations show, is 2.9 million years. Your first tools primitive made from stone, volcanic glass, bone, wood. The raw material was often flint, which is very hard and easily splits into thin plates with cutting edges.
The first tools were called hand axes (or strikers). They could grind and crush plant foods, scrape and peel the peel and bark, and crush nuts. The chopper was universal tool with many functions.
The hand ax is rightfully considered the first invention of man. It is also the first object that a person sought to make convenient to handle or, in other words, modern language, "ergonomic".
Invention of the handle. Composite tools.
Over time, man learned to make hand axes different types, meeting various functional requirements, and then more complex or so-called composite tools. Such tools were a stone splitting ax and a stone hoe (3-4 thousand years BC, late Neolithic), and later a spear. Composite tools were more convenient and efficient to use; they made it possible to increase the impact force of a stone many times over, and therefore increase the efficiency and productivity of the tool. The advent of composite tools made a real revolution in Stone Age technology. In an effort to make their work easier, people began to more carefully finish the ax blade. Through long experience, the techniques of grinding and polishing were mastered. The efficiency of such “axes with handles” was 0.78-0.89, i.e. it was no lower than the efficiency of modern hand tools.
Invention of the bow and arrow
The ingenious invention of mankind was the bow, string and arrows, which were, in fact, the first technically complex tools. Creating a bow required considerable mental ability, keen powers of observation, and a great deal of technical experience. With the help of a bow, it became possible to transmit and transform movement: a released arrow, a drilling device, musical instrument. The bow and arrow allowed man to kill animals and birds at a distance of 100-150 m, and in some cases the length of the arrow's flight reached up to 900 m. Appearing in the Mesolithic (12-7 thousand years BC), they became the main species weapons until the 17th century.
The shapes of the bow, like other composite weapons, have been subjected to multiple modernizations over many millennia, associated with the discovery of new materials and technologies, and the acquisition of new knowledge in the field of ergonomics. At the same time, their basic design diagram and functional idea remains to this day in many cases without any special changes.
To construct such structures, primitive man had to resort to such special, albeit simple, means as levers, wooden rollers, wedges, and inclined planes.
At the dawn of technical civilization, humanity made many great discoveries and inventions, each of which raised it to a new stage of development and opened up more and more technical possibilities. Among these steps are the artificial production of fire (c. 40,000 BC), the invention of the oar and boat (c. 10,000 BC), which gave man the first means of transportation; drilling, sawing and grinding of stone (6000 BC), which led to a real revolution in society; hoe farming (c. 8,000 BC)
Some discoveries are especially important for understanding the evolution of the human environment objective world. One of these is the invention of the wheel and cart.
Wheel and cart
It is believed that the prototype of the wheel was rollers, which were placed under heavy tree trunks, boats and stones when dragging them from place to place. The middle part of such a roller was fired, which made it thinner, ensuring uniform movement of the load. In the course of further improvements, only two rollers with an axis between them remained from the solid log. Later they began to be made separately and fastened together. Thus, the wheel in the proper sense of the word was invented (ca. 4000 BC). Later, to facilitate the overall structure of the wheel, holes were cut out in it, and even later a rim and spokes appeared.
It is difficult to find another discovery that would give such a powerful impetus to the development of technology as the discovery of the wheel. carriage, Potter's wheel, mill, water wheel- that's far away full list devices based on a wheel. Each of these inventions constituted an era in the life of mankind. Their cumulative impact on people's lives was so great that without much exaggeration we can say: the wheel moved history from a dead point and made it rush several times faster.
Weaving and weaving
Weaving radically changed the life and appearance of man. Animal skins were replaced by more comfortable clothing made from light linen, wool and cotton fabrics. However, before this, humanity had to go “A long way. First, they had to master the weaving technique. People had been weaving fishing nets, various fish traps, and baskets for a long time. Only after learning to weave mats from branches and reeds, people were able to begin weaving threads. Archaeologists" "Ancient samples of fabrics, 25-26 thousand years old, have been discovered. The fabrics are made from nettle fibers and have several types of complex weave of threads.
After the domestication of animals, it became possible to produce fabrics from their wool.
The first household items made of ceramics
At the end of the Stone Age (5-3 thousand years BC) - man creates the first artificial materials. These are textiles and ceramics.
"While engaged in farming, man became acquainted with clay, which he used first to coat the wicker walls of his home, and then for wicker dishes.
Firing pottery, which gave the clay mass a stone-like appearance, waterproofness and fire resistance, was an important invention. The art of pottery appeared, and with it the first household items made of ceramics.
Like all crafts, ceramics technology has gone through a long and difficult path of development. Thousands of years have been spent studying the advantages and disadvantages of various clays. From the many types of them, ancient craftsmen learned to choose those that were distinguished by the greatest plasticity, coherence and moisture capacity. Various additives were added to the clay mass to improve the quality of the products.
With the invention of clay vessels, man gained new opportunities for preparing and storing food, which was especially important in subsequent stages of the development of society.
Metal casting. Mass production
Back in the Neolithic (c. 3000 BC), people learned to make tools from copper. At first they were forged from native copper, and then they began to be smelted from copper
The pottery kiln, in the process of its gradual improvement, made it possible to master temperatures above 500° and opened metals to people; first bronze, then iron.
Being an alloy of copper and tin, bronze has more low temperature melting (700-900°), higher casting qualities, and when cooled it has greater strength and hardness. If copper weapons were mainly forged, then bronze ones were cast.
Casting using split stone molds, which made it possible to produce editions, can be considered as the first mass production of tools.
A variety of axes, knives, sickles, hoes, etc., tools and weapons were made from bronze: spears, swords, arrows, etc. In addition, bronze became the main material for making decorations, making all kinds of utensils, and sculptural works.
The use of bronze casting made it possible not only to improve the quality of tools and weapons, but also to significantly diversify them, and most importantly, to speed up the process of their manufacture.
The greatest achievement of mankind, which caused a rapid growth of productive forces, was the production of iron, which finally replaced stone tools and played a revolutionary role in the history of technology. The desire to have more durable tools and weapons led to the opening of steel production. Already in the ancient world, starting from the first half of the 1st millennium BC. steel was widely used for the manufacture of tools and weapons. Greek authors in their works distinguished between the concepts of iron, which they called “siderb,” and steel, “khalips.”
Division of labor. Isolation of craft
The social division of labor and the emergence of crafts as a separate type of activity had a huge impact on the development of technology.
The first major social division of labor occurred already under the primitive communal system: the separation of pastoral tribes from agricultural ones. Cattle breeding provided new products: milk and wool, the production of cheese and butter developed; arose new form dishes - wineskin. The use of wool led to the appearance of felt and fabric, the invention of the spindle and the simplest loom. Domesticated cattle made it possible to replace human work with animal traction, this, in turn, marked the beginning of pack and then horse-drawn transport. The transformation of cattle breeding into an independent occupation enriched technology with a number of new achievements. The hoe developed into a plow, the knife into a sickle, and the harrow was invented. The processing of agricultural products brought to life the threshing of grain, baking bread, preparing vegetable oil, and brewing beer.
Later, under the slave system, further social division of labor led to specialization in agriculture, the emergence of a class of artisans, the emergence of trade as a special type of activity.
The activities of merchants were associated with the rapid improvement of roads, the production of luxury goods and coinage, as well as the widespread use of wheeled carriages and sailing ship. The use of slave labor strengthened the separation of crafts from agriculture and thereby caused the development of its numerous branches. The development of crafts and trade led to the formation of cities, and education major cities, in turn, to specialization within the craft.
The immediate consequence of the formation of individual crafts was the specialization of tools, most clearly manifested in the hammer: in Rome, during the time of Julius Caesar, its main specialized forms were already in use: blacksmithing, carpentry, shoemaking, stone masonry and other special hammers.
The specialization of the worker in only one type of craft created the conditions for the emergence of a number of new inventions. Among them, the plow, mill, presses for grapes and olives, lifting mechanisms, methods of heat treatment of iron, the use of soldering, stamping and etching of metal, the production of sour bread, and the development of mechanisms built on the rotational principle were of particular economic importance.
The division of labor under the slave system created the conditions for the development of science, art, and the emergence of such inventors and theorists as Archimedes, Heron of Alexandria, Aristotle, and Euclid.
Wars and technology development
Slave-owning states constantly waged wars to satisfy the constantly growing demand for slaves in the conditions of development of production. Story Ancient Greece full of wars between individual city-states, metropolises and colonies, between Western and eastern states. The Roman Empire waged continuous wars and during its heyday conquered most of the countries known at that time.
The constant military danger forced cities to be fortified with walls, ditches, embankments and other defensive structures. The need to conduct both siege and defense of cities required the creation of special siege and defensive machines and mechanisms, and the involvement of the best engineering minds in their creation.
To destroy fortress walls, rams and special throwing weapons - ballistas - are invented; to defeat the enemy - various machines for throwing long arrows, stones and incendiary projectiles. The weight of such throwing machines reached 6 tons, the flight range of stones and arrows was up to 500-1000 m, and the weight of thrown projectiles was up to 150-200 kg.
Not only human life, but sometimes the fate of peoples and states depends on the quality of weapons and the perfection of their manufacturing technology. Therefore, weapons from time immemorial have been in the very center of attention of scientists and inventors, large and small, who then found distribution in other areas of human activity.