![Accelerating growth in technology with years, present era (PE). Courtesy Vivisum Partners LLC [1] . The milestones are listed on the right for clarity.](https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Narayanan-Komerath/publication/353714693/figure/fig1/AS:1053439375179778@1628170927405/Accelerating-growth-in-technology-with-years-present-era-PE-Courtesy-Vivisum-Partners_Q320.jpg)
Content uploaded by Narayanan Komerath
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Narayanan Komerath on Aug 05, 2021
Content may be subject to copyright.
Komerath: Technology Countdown Approach to Historical Timelines
Modified from a paper presented at the WAVES2020, the 14th International Conference of the World
Association for Vedic Education and Research. Copyright Narayanan M. Komerath 2020
A Technology Countdown Approach To Historical Timelines
Narayanan Komerath
www.komerath.space
komerath2020@gmail.com
Abstract
For a product to be seen in the market today, the seeds had to be planted a calculable
time ago. Important aspects of the ecosystem included communications, advertising,
customer discovery, financing, infrastructure and competition. Evolutionary streams
interacted. By detailing how a technological capability was achieved, we can learn about
the temporal evolution of a civilization. Findings about the Sarasvati Valley’s role as
trading hub in a global civilization dating back over 7000 years, make this exercise urgent.
A survey of the History of Science and Technology clarifies the need for a technological
school of research steeped in Bharatiya tradition. Three initial models are proposed. The
first is based on a single “exothermic chemical reaction rate” metric based on the
Arrhenius rate expression. The second adds a time delay. The third is based on Machine
Learning back propagation algorithms. Three examples are explored. This new school of
endeavor promises a productive wealth of knowledge about our ancestors and their
ecosystems, while advancing modern capabilities as well.
Introduction
A simplistic generalization may
help make the point of this
paper: given good data,
technological status can be
extrapolated backwards in time.
Figure 1, from [
1
] shows
exponential rise in rate of
innovations on a timeline from
1400 PE to 2020. Time for an
invention to be adopted by 25%
of the US population [
2
], has
been decreasing at an
exponential rate. Disposable
income, transport, comm
unications, advertising, and an
ecosystem that streamlined the
adoption process, all help.
The rate of progress is exponentially slower if we go backwards in time. Suppose a “3D
Chip” were found in a fossil in 5000PE, and dated to 2030PE. It also existed for some 20
years before then. The Bactrian Cup is dated to 4000 BPE (Before Present Era). Similarly
scaling progress, the technology for it probably existed for another 1000 years before
that, given a much slower rate of advancement. In other words, civilization extended much
Figure 1: Accelerating growth in technology with years, present
era (PE). Courtesy Vivisum Partners LLC [1] . The milestones are
listed on the right for clarity.
Komerath: Technology Countdown Approach to Historical Timelines
Modified from a paper presented at the WAVES2020, the 14th International Conference of the World
Association for Vedic Education and Research. Copyright Narayanan M. Komerath 2020
further back in time than present archaeology-based point-snapshots indicate. Welcome
to the Countdown approach to understand the technologies of ancient times. The aim of
this paper is to start a discussion on how to refine this process using patient research,
growing knowledge bases and evolving capabilities. What I am proposing is an entire
school of study integrating tradition, language, archaeology, technology and the
multifaceted disciplines of venture capitalism, machine language and artificial
intelligence.
The paper starts with motivations. Why? Why now? Next a swift exploration of need, given
the current State of the Art (SOA). Next, a suggestion of analytical methods. And finally,
3 examples: The Aranmula Kannadi, the Bactrian Cup, and Celestial Navigation.
Concluding remarks dream of the type of School (community of researchers, not brick
and mortar) that is needed.
Background
Civilizations are often “dated and rated” by measured or speculated age of fossils and
artifacts found in their ruins. Broad classifications such as “Bronze Age” mark their
owners’ lives. The lack of a unifying thread leads to endless controversy, driven by various
agendas. For instance the frameworks that we were taught in school textbooks
miraculously fit belief systems imported and imposed on our own traditional knowledge.
They have been largely debunked – but are still taught! In the end, such controversies
produce little useful knowledge. For instance, we have read somewhere that “The Ancient
Maya built huge temples on top of high mountains”, or “our ancestors knew how to
navigate the oceans”. But do we know how that was done? Very few have any idea how
to do the same today even with modern trappings.
Understandably, most people aspire to believe that they descended from the most
advanced civilization. The Single Point Origin Theory of human development fits certain
religious beliefs, usually ignoring contributions from the Bharatavarsha region. Thus for
instance we keep hearing how fossilized remains of the “First Human” must somehow be
traced to arid areas in the Mediterranean/West Asia. Even if found in the Australian
desert. These models are tied to timelines as scientific pillars. The Gulf of Mexico asteroid
hit that “killed the dinosaurs”, and Jebu supervolcano “constriction event” are examples.
I propose a different avenue that is potentially more useful. It takes a finite time for an
invention or discovery to lead to mass use. Going forward from a given invention leads
to the instability of an Initial Value Lagrangian approach, particularly given the five
phase oscillation of the Gartner Hype Cycle [
3
]:“Technology Trigger, Peak of Inflated
Expectations, Trough of Disillusionment, Slope of Enlightenment and Plateau of
Productivity”. Instead I suggest a Back Propagation. A Countdown. In brief, if X was
observed in 2020, when did it have to be invented? My eventual focus is on the period
from 100,000 to 2,000 BPE.
Komerath: Technology Countdown Approach to Historical Timelines
Modified from a paper presented at the WAVES2020, the 14th International Conference of the World
Association for Vedic Education and Research. Copyright Narayanan M. Komerath 2020
Motivation
My motivation comes from 3 sources:
1) The Sarasvati Valley research set off by satellite images and well water readings in
1974, debunked the prevailing Aryan Invasion Theory of Indus Valley Civilization. The
Sarasvati was exactly where Puranas placed her. The major civilization was not
isolated in a few villages, but looked East. Research has uncovered a vast continuity
of contacts, industry and trade “from Hanoi to Haifa” with major trading centers in the
Sapta Sindhu Valley. The civilizations in Mesopotamia, Egypt, Syria and Persia are in
this continuity. The implications are quite stunning in scope, but little appreciated in or
outside India.
2) The US National Science Foundation showed that over 93 percent of “Startup
Ventures” which win competitive funding from Venture Capitalists, go out of business
within two years. This should trigger some introspection. US-based Venture
Capitalists are extremely well-organized and draw on a vast eco-system of expertise
in anything they desire. Once they fund a company, they guide it along a well-honed
path to large return on investment. How can such a failure rate be explained? One
difficulty is in estimating and reaching customers who will actually pay for products
and sustain growth over many years.
3) My high school Social Studies textbooks glorified destructive social misfits who mass-
murdered, looted and burned hard-working “lesser” peoples who were described if at
all, with utter disdain. I wondered about “Phoenician Traders” who preceded the
celebrated “civilizations”. Who built their ships? How did they find things to trade? Who
built those? Who taught them? Perhaps a history is needed, written from our native
sense?
The relevance is to explore the ecosystems in which the technologies behind the
Bharatiya civilization glimpsed in the Sarasvati Valley, grew to such a huge extent. It was
an era where travel and communication were slow and difficult; where non-verbal
communication used stone inscriptions, pictorial and 3-dimensional artifacts. It boils down
to this: How long did it take for that discovery or invention to become widely adopted back
in ancient times?
Prior Work: History of Science and Technology (HoST)
I am not even a novice in this field and am keenly aware of rushing in where The Wise
fear to tread. However, I tried to learn a bit in what I summarize here. Singer [
4
] is cited
in [
5
] from the “Pirke Avoth, the Ethics (or Sayings) of the Fathers, a compilation of popular
teachings of the Rabbinic Sages written circa PE15. This wonders how,“if every pair of
metal tongs needed another pair of metal tongs to make it, how was the first pair made?”
Bunch and Hellemans [
6
] is an extensive compilation of actual HoST, a volume of great
value as a data source. Arnold [
7
] cites the Surya Siddhanta as having been composed
circa 400 PE and having chapters on the motions of heavenly bodies, and astronomical
instruments such as the armillary sphere. Studies on ceramics in Africa [
8
] and about the
Komerath: Technology Countdown Approach to Historical Timelines
Modified from a paper presented at the WAVES2020, the 14th International Conference of the World
Association for Vedic Education and Research. Copyright Narayanan M. Komerath 2020
Phoenicians [
9
,
10
,
11
,
12
,
13
,
14
] are listed as sources of data for our knowledge base:
these were the early connections to pre-Greek European centers.
A few themes were apparent. Early work actually explored and catalogued artifacts and
pondered their significance. Recent work considers the problem solved. Their Eurocentric
model is divided between Greeks (via Al Sikandar) as the first civilized humans, and [
15
]
Victorian England. The more recent fashion [
16
] is a lament over the lack of Eastern
focus and a claimed “refusal of the Indians to meet our gaze” unlike “congenial” East
Asian scholars [
17
]. I saw some resonance [
18
] with the notion of delving into the realities
of the times, versus staying at superficial ideological levels. However, most still focus on
Kings. Science and technology must focus on engineers, artisans and traders, the
foundations of the Imperial structure. Modern HoST [
19
] spends more time on the history
of historians, and the need [
20
] to waste more of the curriculum on paying them.
My friends inform me that Leslie White [
21
] articulated his Cultural Evolution, formulating
an equation relating technology (T), energy (E) and culture (C): T x E = C. The school of
Technological Determinism [
22
] relates civilization to the technology available to society.
Lenski advanced an Ecological-Evolutionary Theory [
23
]
Some facts are assumed. For example, the Romans “knew” how to build long aqueducts
over undulating terrain. Indians “knew” how to build marble edifices. But what do these
pieces imply about other things? How did they get there? Where else did they go with
that knowledge? How did the knowledge transfer? I find few answers, curiosity or
empathy in HoST.
We now know better. The continuum of habitation and development is at least 140,000
years old in most of India. When an ancient artifact is discovered, there is no need to
invent theories for its appearance based on Greek or British “science”. There must be a
progression through aeons of experimentation, failure analysis, innovation driven by pain,
advances driven by the imperative of excellence, and so on. Let us try browsing the
process, in the context of a few artifacts.
Approach
History estimates the basic evolution timeline of human Science and Technology. Those
who lived 2.6 million years ago “knew” to and manipulate fire. Soil and later wood were
used for structures, tools and weapons. Stone tools were used around 250,000 BPE; Iron
tools circa 1200 BPE [
24
] in Europe. The finely-evolved metallurgy of the Iron Pillar of
Delhi, reputedly stolen from Jain temples near Bhubhaneshwar, stands mutely
questioning that, as does [
25
], tracing steel to at least 2500 BPE. Brass, copper, alloy
steel, ceramics (porcelain), aluminum, silicon followed. Tin is ignored, but was huge in
Asia. Blogs at [
26
] contain my amateurish take on the first 12 billion years and down to
around 100,000 BPE.
The technology level around 4000 to 5000 BPE can be discerned from the Sarasvati
Valley findings. So my focus is on the period from 4000 BPE to 100,000 BPE. The
Komerath: Technology Countdown Approach to Historical Timelines
Modified from a paper presented at the WAVES2020, the 14th International Conference of the World
Association for Vedic Education and Research. Copyright Narayanan M. Komerath 2020
Sarasvati knowledge base is vast and rapidly growing [
27
]. As this project advances, a
Technology Canvas can no doubt be developed, that connects the various artifacts with
the now-decoded significance, and the common communication medium of those times.
This process will have error bounds, which our research must strive to reduce. Below I
present 3 levels of analysis.
Simplistic Model for Market Acceptance Delay: The Arrhenius Rate Expression
An exothermic (heat-releasing such as combustion)
chemical reaction appears to be very simple: A
molecule of hydrogen and an atom of oxygen react
to produce a molecule of water and release heat.
The simplest model of this reaction consists of at
least 5 sub-reactions and 7 different species. Each
step also has a forward and reverse reaction. The
slowest of those steps determines the reaction rate,
which is the rate of product (water) formation. At the
microscopic level, many events must precede
these sub reactions. Two molecules or in rare
cases three, must collide. Only collisions that occur
with a sufficient relative velocity and within a narrow
range of orientations might result in reaction. All
told, a huge unknown “steric factor” occurs in the
reaction probability. But on a gross level, the overall
reaction rate can be modeled with just 3 variables: A
“pre-activation factor” A, an “Activation Energy” E,
and the temperature T (multiplied by a constant R).
The rate of product generation is:
k = A exp(-E/RT)
The factor (E/R) is the aggregate “obstacle” to be surmounted for reaction to occur. As
temperature T increases, energy of molecules increases, making the obstacle seem
smaller. This is why one should not smoke at gasoline stations. It also explains why milk
curdles. Temperature is a measure of kinetic energy, and related to how fast molecules
zip around. Given a population density, it measures how fast “information” spreads: i.e.
the Speed of Sound. Table 1 indicates the analogue.
Table 1: Analogue between chemical reaction and innovation
Parameter
Chemistry
Innovation History
E/R
Activation Energy normalized
Obstacle to implementation
T
Kinetic temperature
Proportional to Time
1/k
Inverse of Reaction Rate
Time delay between changes
t
Ignition Delay
Unexpected delay in 2-parameter model
Figure 2: Rate of Market Events per
year, and Delay per event in millennia,
plotted against millennia BPE, illustrating
the analogy with the Arrhenius Reaction
Rate expression.
Komerath: Technology Countdown Approach to Historical Timelines
Modified from a paper presented at the WAVES2020, the 14th International Conference of the World
Association for Vedic Education and Research. Copyright Narayanan M. Komerath 2020
The philosophical equivalent shows why sales of a consumer device “ignite” when certain
conditions are met. Population density helps, as do an energized (wealthier) population,
faster communications and travel. This “temperature” has been rising perhaps linearly
with time. The ratio of “energy obstacle” to time has come down over the ages: it was
large in olden times. Reaction rate k measures events (chemical reactions or innovations)
per unit time. Thus (1/k) measures delay between events (time per event). Figure 3 shows
k and 1/k versus time in Millennia BPE. In olden times k was tiny, and 1/k was measured
in Millennia. Parameters for Figure 1 are arbitrary, chosen to fit a simple figure. But the
status quo in technology remained unmoved for centuries or even millennia!
Two-Parameter Model
A separate “ignition delay” models the relatively slow reaction that generates “radicals”
that are key to the reaction. In innovation, long delays are due to bureaucracy, the hunt
for funding, development etc. Two important parameters to model technological change
are: 1) Time for a given innovation to reach market acceptance and 2) time for a better
alternative to succeed. The former depends on the eco-system available to bring out a
new system, e.g. the first portable fire- starter. The latter depended on eco-system but
also had to overcome market resistance and competition. The first is a time of dynamic
“reaction”. Slow change can be modeled as a flat delay.
As time progressed, innovators and marketers strove to reduce obstacles and delay.
Venture Capitalists streamlined the process, slashing time-to-market. But there may be
surprising “rate-limiting steps” that vastly increased time for a great idea and product to
“catch on” in the marketplace. A beautiful Bactrian Cup definitely placed to 4634 BPE,
means that technology behind it existed for perhaps 1000 years before, and perhaps 500
after.
Back Propagation Algorithms of Machine Learning
Other events may have sped up change. There may have been multiple paths, not evident
to us now. We switch from the sheer randomness of
Combustion reactions to the weighted paths of Back
Propagation algorithms in Machine Learning and
Artificial Intelligence (ML/AI). Figure 3 shows multiple
paths from many inputs, through intermediate layers,
to the output layer of present outcomes. The process
starts by assigning random ‘weights’ to each path, and
iterating forward and back until most probable paths
are established, giving some relation between the input
and the output, too complicated for human brains but
easy for silicon chips. The output depends on all that
went before reaching it, but with different levels of
dependence or influence. Given sufficient ‘training’
data, these algorithms achieve miraculous results. The
key then is the training data set.
Figure 3: A simple neural network.
Courtesy Prof. Rao Vemuri, course
notes on Machine Language and
Artificial Intelligence
Komerath: Technology Countdown Approach to Historical Timelines
Modified from a paper presented at the WAVES2020, the 14th International Conference of the World
Association for Vedic Education and Research. Copyright Narayanan M. Komerath 2020
Leap-Frogging Using Traditional Knowledge Bases
Back propagation algorithms rely on massive numbers of iterations to find the most
probable paths. This may be the only way at first, and may guide us to look in
“unexpected” places. As our knowledge base and ability to understand, classify and use
it improve, we can find weights of given paths with much better certainty. This is the
realization that drove this paper. Meanwhile researchers may try developing rules for
various delays, as illustrated in Table 1 – but this is a long way from being satisfactory:
much remains to be done for such detail.
Table 2: Rules-based delay in Years, extrapolated from modern Indian experience
Step causing delay
Modern delay
5000BPE
50,000 BPE
Bureaucracy involved
1 to inf.
10 to inf.
0
Disagreement
20
50
1
Communication per 100 km
1/365 constant
3/365
Travel per 100 km
4/8760
3/365
5/365
Each Discipline Interaction
2
10
100
Aranmula Kannadi
The value of precious stones and ornaments, lies not in the special properties of the
substances from which they are made, but in a carefully protected narrative centered on
emotion. This is why a beautiful crystal of Cubic Zirconia does not fetch a fraction of the
price of a tiny piece of carbon, called a diamond. “Kannadi” means Dancing Eyes, or a
mirror. Aranmula is in coastal Kerala.
The Aranmula Kannadi, an example shown in Figure 3, is an
ornate, metal mirror, polished as smooth as glass. It is a front-
surface mirror with excellent hardness and corrosion resistance,
lasting for decades if not centuries. How and why did this tradition
arise? The Sarasvati explorations link the metal expertise to the
metal trade of 3000+ BPE. I hold that the mirror was a crucial
element of Customer Discovery for the trade in precious metals
and jewelry. It must have caused an exponential leap in the value
of colored mineral pieces and shiny yellow metals, in turn
boosting that entire line of work and enriching its artisans and
merchants. It provided wealth to develop and fund mining for
gems and precious metals, and furnaces and bellows to achieve
needed temperatures. Fine tongs to hold molten metal without
melting took a careful classification of metals by hardness and
melting/softening points, spawning another branch of metallurgy.
It funded research to grind metal surfaces and polish to a mirror
gleam. The technique to polish the mirror must have developed
concurrently if not before, jewelry became so expensive.
Figure 4: Modern Aranmula
Kannadi. Courtesy
aranmulakannadi.org/
tag/valkannadi/
Komerath: Technology Countdown Approach to Historical Timelines
Modified from a paper presented at the WAVES2020, the 14th International Conference of the World
Association for Vedic Education and Research. Copyright Narayanan M. Komerath 2020
Metal composition of the Aranmula Kannadi is said to be similar to that of “speculum”[
28
],
chemical formula Cu4Sn: 68.21% copper and 31.7% tin. This is interesting. Tin deposits
are not native to India, but plentiful in Vietnam. Copper is plentiful in India. So how did
this discovery happen? Southeast Asian tin reached south India. How much refinement
and experimentation preceded a mirror-smooth finish? Each variation of alloy composition
required a hot experiment involving furnaces, molten metals and the extensive labor of
polishing. Someone had to realize its value as a face-admiring personal mirror. It’s
consumer appeal had to be enhanced by shaping the mirror as a circle or ellipse (no
square Aranmula Mirrors are known). An ornate frame and ergonomic handle suited to
the hands of intended customers had to be developed. As popularity of the mirrors rose,
so did the narrative which made it a mandatory part of temple rituals as well as part of the
“Ashtamangalyam” or 8 auspicious items required at the “Here Comes The Bride!” phase
of Kerala weddings.
Bactrian Cup
The Bactrian Cup is an amazing piece of art as well as a nice
silver drinking mug. The name denotes its presumed origin in
Bactria north of Afghanistan. The detailed art on it has been
identified as Sarasvati Valley metal trade code. Table 2 is a
crude attempt to guess the Countdown timeline that led to the
“Bactrian Cup” appearing in Bactria. Per Figure 3 and these
numbers the Cup’s technology is much older. Or if the age is
accurate then the timeline was shorter? How many generations
did it take to do each step?
Celestial Navigation
Traders travelled all the way between East Asia (Vietnam and
Korea if not Japan) and modern-day Israel. Coastline travel must have been shortened
by cutting across open water between Kerala and points both north and south of the
Equator. Travel was in Dhows made from Kerala teakwood, equipped with sails. For
navigation, the sailors used the North star when north of the Equator and other stars when
south of it. Note that back in those times the present Polaris, 430 light years (LY) away,
was not the North Star: Thuban (Alpha Draconis), 305 LY in the Dragon constellation,
was closer to the true north in 6000-4000BPE and Vega (Alpha Lyrae), 25LY in 11,000
BPE. Today Vega can be seen north of 51 degrees South Latitude. The device used to
take readings looks amazingly simple: A rectangular piece of wood with a knotted string
through its center. A sailor stood at the prow, extended his arm to so that the bottom of
the wood was on the horizon and the top came just up to the star, and counted the number
of knots in the string between the wooden piece and his teeth where he held the other
end of the string. This measurement was quickly converted to latitude. The device was
made possible by empirical fit to a very accurate astronomical knowledge base.
Figure 5: The Bactrian Cup
Komerath: Technology Countdown Approach to Historical Timelines
Modified from a paper presented at the WAVES2020, the 14th International Conference of the World
Association for Vedic Education and Research. Copyright Narayanan M. Komerath 2020
Table 2: Countdown to Delivery of the Bactrian Cup.
Step
Delay,
years
Step
Delay, years
Deliver Cup to
Bactria
0
Arrange Funding
3
Start Voyage from
SV
1
Customer Discovery
5
Shipment Ready
0.3
Metal Artist connected
5
Reaches SV
0.1
Prior model refined
10
Starts from factory
0.5
Prior gen
20
Produced
0.3
Tech developed
10
Materials Arrive
0.1
Furnace tech
30
Materials Shipped
1
Silver metallurgy
30
Materials Ordered
1
Silver extraction
30
Contract rec’d
1
Mining tech
30
Item refined
5
Digging tool dev
50
Total
233.3
The method is a linearized approximation of trigonometry, valid for small angles of latitude
above the Equator. It clearly came from someone with a thorough understanding of vastly
more sophisticated astronomy. Those who developed it knew that sailing towards the
horizon would not make you fall of the edge: they knew the planet was spherical, and the
sky changed periodically with the time of day and the seasons. How long did it take to
develop that method? And how long to do the research [
29
] that enabled such a simple
device to be developed from the results? How did traders interact with artisans and
middle-people? How did they prepare and equip themselves for long voyages? How did
they know how to do this? As with our other examples, numerous disciplines, trades, skills
and needs had to intersect.
Cross-Linking Artifacts
From the above examples, one sees that the Aranmula Kannadi, the Bactrian Cup and
Celestial Navigation technology were very interlinked. The Cup advertised the State of
the Art (SOA) in technical and artistic capabilities. The Kannadi was also subtle
advertising in its own right, but a crucial market multiplier and huge price booster for
jewelry and cosmetics, from trinket to must-have level. Considering the mass ratio
between a human-wearable ornament and a human-portable box of goods, one can
imagine the immense boost in profit margin for jewelry vendors and the attendant need
for investment in security and military escort. The Cup and the Kannadi thus must have
funded development of shipbuilding and navigation technology, and in turn the navigation
system opened up the entire African continent and South/Southeast Asia islands, if not
Polynesia and points west.
Komerath: Technology Countdown Approach to Historical Timelines
Modified from a paper presented at the WAVES2020, the 14th International Conference of the World
Association for Vedic Education and Research. Copyright Narayanan M. Komerath 2020
Discussion
Modeling all of the above will be a huge pan-disciplinary project, perhaps the center of
Bharatiya Itihasa. This paper is the first step in a different approach to such long-span
history. The approach presumes that technological advancement does not consist of
flashes of inspiration such as the legend of Archimedes. It is a long-drawn-out process
where an invention is slowly developed to satisfy a need, the spark coming when the
inventor realizes that there is a technology available, that enables something that no one
had anticipated. It then spends a long time in limbo with few listening, fewer caring or
understanding. It eventually gains credibility, gets refined and tested before it is adopted
by even a few people. Adoption usually occurs because a Pain Point exists, and the Value
Proposition for which it is adopted is often very different from the originally intended
purpose. Propagation from there is often a painfully slow process of Customer Discovery.
Delays can be assigned to each step.
The eventual path has to be complete to be valid: even one missing step would invalidate
it. This fact provides a Closure Check. So when done with rigor this process will produce
a time- and space-resolved technology map of the ancient world where all holes are filled.
At minimum, this process will vastly improve our understanding of our ancestors, and of
the galaxy of technologies that are woven into our current world.
A broader question that I pose is how to use this fundamental investigation of Bharatiya
Civilization as the nucleus and integrative center of a modern university. It is clearly pan-
disciplinary, so that all elements in the university have a role to play in its advancement.
In turn, such a focus unifies disciplines and lends empathy if not excellent ideas for
modern development. The third element of such a focus, at the formative years of
students, is the humbling yet inspiring realization of how much their ancestors could do.
The basic skills that built such a civilization should still be required as part of basic
education at some level, though of course not to the artisan levels required at the times
when they were crucial to survival. This thought has often struck me when I see lists of
“Classical Knowledge” that are required before a modern citizen can be considered
“educated”, “cultured” etc. This list is extremely occidental-centric and hence seemed very
narrow to me. For instance, which is more important to a modern Indian to know: “The
Boy Has Asked For More!!” or “Tat tvam asi” ? The poetry of Byron, or that of Kalidasa?
Today it is relatively easy to find Indian-educated people who know all of the above, but I
doubt that more than a very small percentage of western-educated people can say the
same. A thought to pass on to those designing Revolutionary Change in Indian Higher
Education, by copying the present status of Top Western Universities without requiring
the Why and How of the indubitable excellence of those institutions. Someone with a top-
notch education in, say, 2035 should have a highly integrated and clear realization of the
past, as well as the capability to excel in the present and future.
Concluding Remarks
This is a massive long term endeavor, far beyond my own capacity or time. The paper
lays out reasons for the approach, explores some avenues of promise, and suggests
Komerath: Technology Countdown Approach to Historical Timelines
Modified from a paper presented at the WAVES2020, the 14th International Conference of the World
Association for Vedic Education and Research. Copyright Narayanan M. Komerath 2020
routes for others to explore. The complexity of the picture has become tractable with
modern research tools such as the Internet and ML/AI processing. Traditional
archaeology and History of Science and Technology provide many artifacts and
development records for recent times. Three levels of analysis are proposed for long-
span history. The first simple model uses ideas from combustion chemistry, a 2-
parameter model with an added “ignition” delay, and finally an approach based on ML/AI
back-propagation algorithms, suitable for empirical training data. Each must be combined
with patient empiricism and exploration. The massive and growing Sarasvati knowledge
base provides crucial linkages, and contains much of the needed information to build a
global picture, going back at least 10,000 years BPE. Examining how those communities
reached a given level of capabilities at a given time will lead to understanding the
preceding 100,000 years, and so on to the 2.65 million BPE presumed origin of humans
or human-precursors on Earth.
Some results can be stated already. The advanced products and capabilities seen in
4000BPE mean a development path over many millennia. Given the evolution of human
lifespans, we see why artisan skills stayed in families: it took many generations to drive
product development before market demand ever “went viral” justifying mass-production
– and given communication difficulties, mass production stayed localized. The
geographical extent and pan-disciplinary interaction implied by the artifacts found all over
Asia-Europe are thus inexplicable unless the civilizations that produced them extended
far, far back in time, beyond the assumptions generated from isolated findings of artifacts.
Today’s fragmented systems of higher education are inadequate to explore these things
A new pan-disciplinary school is needed, where the study of our own civilization forms
the integrating core and driving focus for all the disciplines.
Acknowledgements
The author is deeply grateful for the knowledge provided by Dr. S. Kalyanaraman, director
of the Sarasvati Research foundation, and for the opportunity to view the train of research
as it developed through the conferences of WAVES since 1996. Guidance from Prof.
Sarath Menon, University of Houston regarding relevant work in the History of Science
and Technology, is also gratefully acknowledged.
References
1
The Innovation Age. Website of Vivisum Partners LLC, https://vivisumpartners.com/the-new-frontier-
intro/
2
Kurzweil, R. Wikipedia. Kurzweil Technologies. PPTMASSuseInventionsLogPRINT.jpg, CC BY 1.0
3
Anon, Gartner Hype Cycle. https://www.gartner.com/en/information-technology/glossary/hype-cycle
4
Singer, S. (trans.): 1962, The Authorised Daily Prayer Book, Eyre and Spottiswoode, London.
5
Gardner P.L. The Roots of Technology and Science: A Philosophical and Historical View. In: De Vries
M.J., Tamir A. (eds) Shaping Concepts of Technology. Springer, Dordrecht. 1977
6
Bunch, B. H. & Hellemans, A. The history of science and technology: a browser’s guide to the great
discoveries, inventions, and the people who made them, from the dawn of time to today (Houghton Mifflin
Harcourt, 2004.
7
Arnold, D. & Johnson, G. The new Cambridge History of India (Cambridge University Press, 2000).
Komerath: Technology Countdown Approach to Historical Timelines
Modified from a paper presented at the WAVES2020, the 14th International Conference of the World
Association for Vedic Education and Research. Copyright Narayanan M. Komerath 2020
8
Gosselain, O.P. Ceramics in Africa. In Selin, H. (Ed), Encyclopaedia of the History of Science,
Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures. Vol 1, p. 32-44. Springer, 2008.
9
Röllig, W. Phoenicia and the Phoenicians in the context of the Ancient Near East. 1995.
10
Sharon, I. Phoenician and Greek Ashlar Construction Techniques at Tel Dor, Israel. Bulletin of the
American Schools of Oriental Research 267, 21–42, 1987.
11
Xella, P., Quinn, J., Melchiorri, V. & Van Dommelen, P. Phoenician Bones of Contention. Antiquity 87,
1199–1207, 2013.
12
Hackett, J. A. Phoenician and Punic. Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World’s Ancient Languages 365–
85, 2004.
13
Byblius, P. The Phoenician History (Catholic Biblical Association of America, 1980.
14
van Alfen, P. Phoenician trade: An overview’. Tech. Rep., Working Paper. 2015.
15
Chambers, D.W. & Gillespie, R. Locality in the history of science: Colonial science, technoscience, and
indigenous knowledge. Osiris 15, 221–240, 2000.
16
Anderson, Warwick. Asia as Method in Science and Technology Studies. East Asian Science,
Technology and Society: An International Journal 6:445–451, 2012. DOI 10.1215/18752160-1572849
17
Fan, F.-T. The Global Turn In The History Of Science. East Asian Science, Technology and Society:
An International Journal 6, 249–258, 2012.
18
Boyes, P. J. “the King of the Sidonians”: Phoenician ideologies and the Myth of the Kingdom of Tyre-
Sidon. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 365, 33–44, 2012.
19
Bray, F 2012, 'Only Connect: Comparative, National, And Global History As Frameworks For The
History Of
Science And Technology In Asia', East Asian Science, Technology and Society: An International Journal,
vol.
6, no. 2, pp. 233-241. https://doi.org/10.1215/18752160-1625900
20
Bybee, R. W. et al. Integrating The History And Nature Of Science And Technology In Science And
Social Studies Curriculum. Science Education 75, 143–155, 1991.
21
Channa, Subhdra. "Unit-1 Evolutionary perspective." Indira Gandhi National Open University, New
Delhi, 2020. http://www.egyankosh.ac.in/bitstream/123456789/65139/1/Unit-1.pdf
22
Wyatt, Sally. "Technological Determinism Is Dead; Long Live Technological Determinism." The
handbook of science and technology studies 3: 165-180, 2008.
23
Lenski, Gerhard. Ecological-Evolutionary Theory: Principles And Applications. Routledge, 2015.
24
Anon, Iron Age. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Age
25
Muhammad, H., Tradition of Crucible Steel Traced Back to Sarasvati Sindhu Civilization & Indus Script
Corpora, ca. 2500BCE – A Tribute To Late Prof. R. Balasubramaniam.
https://www.academia.edu/44484820.
26
Komerath, Narayanan. “Messages from our Ancestors: Prelude”. A series of blogs coming down to
100,000 BPE. Charcha2000. https://narayanankomerath.wordpress.com/2020/03/09/messages-from-our-
ancestors-prelude/
27
Kalyanaraman, S. TISSC e-Seminar: Saravasti-Sindhu Valleys as Trading Centers, 4th M. BCE
https://www.taksha.org/TISSC/events/e-Seminar+on+Saravasti-Sindhu+Valleys+as+Trading+Centers
28
Henley. Wikipedia. Speculum metal. https://chestofbooks.com/reference/Henley-s-20th-Century-
Formulas-Recipes-Processes-Vol1/index.html.
29
Ramasubramanian, K., Srinivas, M., Sriram, M.S. "Modification Of The Earlier Indian Planetary Theory By The
Kerala Astronomers (c. 1500 AD) And The Implied Heliocentric Picture Of Planetary Motion." Current Science
66.10 784-790, 1994.
