[Broken_Hippo]

Go ahead. Invent some new tech that absolutely no one know about or how to do and that isn't based on any known tech. I'm waiting. What's taking so long?

Discovering stuff is hard and harder if you don't think you need it. People kept fire going before they knew how to start fires. If you don't know about the concept of flint or lighting dry stuff with sparks, it is really hard to invent fire starting. Writing isn't as useful if you can just learn what you need to know while growing up. A more complicated world later - as are discoveries slowly started to build up - probably created the need.

But again, those discoveries are hard and they took time. A really long time, apparently.

[conover]

I think there is a tendency to project the modern era's speed of technological progress back in time, which isn't reasonable. We went from the Wright Brothers to Apollo 11 in 66 years. The first transistor to the iPhone in ~60 years. That rate of development is...new.

[arresin]

My thinking is that they didn’t have any time to invent new things. They did chores and then died.

[gopher_space]

Hunter gatherers had a ton of free time. It's almost impossible to describe how thick on the ground resources were pre-industrialization.