18,000 BCE–Present: (The Chemical Line of Technological Descent, Ceramic Technology as the Earliest Sophisticated Pyrotechnology in Human History: Using Heat…

18,000 BCE–Present: (The Chemical Line of Technological Descent, Ceramic Technology as the Earliest Sophisticated Pyrotechnology in Human History: Using Heat to Remake the Chemistry and Usefulness of Earthen Matter, Its Foundational Place in the Chain of Inventions Leading to the Modern Technological World from Dental Implants to Phone Chargers to Space Shuttle Tiles, and the Multiple Independent Inventions of This Technology in Several Distantly Separated Parts of the World): The earliest of the two great lines of technological descent that Ehret traces in Ancient Africa: A Global History is the chemical line, and it begins with ceramics. Ceramic technology was a major transitional development in human mastery of the physical world, and Ehret wants us to understand exactly why. It was the earliest sophisticated pyrotechnology: the earliest formal technology using heat to remake the chemistry and therefore the usefulness of earthen matter. But the real significance goes far beyond cooking pots. Ceramic wares became valued commodities that contributed to the growth of both short- and long-distance commercial enterprise. And what we often fail to appreciate is the foundational place of ceramic technology in the chains of invention that lead all the way down to the technological world of today. Modern ceramics are not generally clay-based the way the original ones were. They consist of oxides like alumina and zirconia, or nonoxides like silicon carbide. Dental implants are ceramic. Phone chargers use silicide-based ceramic materials. The tiles on space shuttles that enable them to withstand the enormous heat of reentry are products of silicide ceramic technology. Every one of these modern marvels descends, through a long chain of iterative innovation, from the moment some ancient person first figured out that fire could transform clay into something entirely new. And that moment happened not once but multiple times, independently, in several distantly separated parts of the world.