Bismillah Rahman Rahim (In the name God, the most gracious, the most Merciful)
By Genevieve Apio
gennygenevieve256@gmail.com
Pursuing a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism Media and Communication
THE EVOLUTION OF TOOLS, AND HOW THEY HAVE TRANSFORMED SOCIETY.
The three factors of production are labour, capital, land and Knowledge as proposed by current economists.
Land: Land has a broad definition as a factor of production and can take on various forms, from agricultural land to real estate and to the resources available from a particular piece of land. Natural resources such as oil and gold, can be extracted from land and refined for human consumption from land like excavators that are used to dig beneath the land. Cultivation of crops on land by farmers using hoes, ox ploughs, rakes among others increases it value and utility.
Labour: Labor refers to the effort expended by an individual to bring a product or service to the market. Again, it can take on various forms. For example, the construction worker at a building site is part of labor, workers who help in the excavation of minerals at a mining site are also part of labor. Even an artist involved in making art, whether it is a painting or a symphony, is considered labor. Production workers are paid for their time and effort in wages that depend on their skill and training. Labor by untrained workers is paid at low prices. Skilled and trained workers are referred to as human capital and are paid higher wage.
Capital: In economics, capital typically refers to money. But money is not a factor of production because it is not directly involved in producing a good or service. Instead it facilitates the process of production by enabling people or companies to purchase capital goods or machinery.
As a factor of production, capital refers to purchase of goods made with money in production. For example, a tractor purchased for farming is capital. Along the same line tools used at home like cutlery: knives, spoons, peddles are also capital, desks and chairs used in offices, schools are also capital.
During economic expansion companies may invest in new machinery and equipment to bring new products to the market. An example is Japan and china, it started the manufacture of robots to improve productivity and meet growing market demands.
Some countries have capitalized on their comparative advantage in regard to these factors of production to advance exponentially, countries like china, india , United states of America, brazil, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Russia , Pakistan with very large populations have exploited their labour markets to produce for export and today rank as some of the top tier cheap labour industrialized countries in the world due exploiting that one factor of production and consumption.
Countries with the largest land mass have advanced due to land as a factor of production. Russia, Canada, China, Australia, India, Argentina,Kazakhstan,Algeria, Egypt and many of the African countries that until today largely depend on land as the strongest factor of production. Countries such Egypt have relied on their early civilization and open sea channels to flourish. We cannot ignore countries such as Congo with equally vast land resources but have been held back by civil wars.
Due to its small land mass, Japan has developed a niche market for producing highly sophisticated tools that the world depends on. Among other countries with a small land mass that have fully exploited their resources are qatar, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Bahrain, United Kingdom - a global financial hub. These countries have created and acquired the necessary tools to fully exploit their land resources making them some of the wealthiest nations in the World through oil and gas production.
This paper will therefore zero in on tools as a contributing factor of production. Capital as earlier defined in its self would mean resources that have been deployed in form of money that is translated into technology transfer, energy, tools etc that are used in production. We shall focus on the role of tools in production and why it is important to pay attention to their contribution in economic development.
Tools have contributed to the social development and organization of society as it is today. On that note, this paper shall consider the following tool using definition:-According to Millikan, Bowman (1965) and Van Lawick Goodall (1970), ‘’Tool-using involves the manipulation of an inanimate object, not internally manufactured, with the effect of improving the animal's efficiency in altering the position or form of some separate object’’.
Evidence of Animals using Tools (by John Alcock)
“ In his research paper,;- “The Evolution of the use of tools by feeding animals”by John Alcock ,Department of Psychology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington he sites several examples where animals have proven and evidently do use tools to manipulate their own environments: Example:
1. (ant-lions, Neuroptera). Lampromyia spp., Vermilio spp. (wormlions, Diptera), Wheeler (1930).
Sand particles are showered on prey walking by or at the top of a small sand pit constructed by a larva which resides at the bottom of the pit. The sand is propelled by a head throwing movement and has the effect of knocking prey to the bottom of the pit.
2. Enhydra lutris (sea otter), Kenyon (1959), Hall and Schaller (1964).
Stones and shells are collected from the ocean floor, carried to the surface, placed on the animal's chest while it floats on its back, and used as an anvil to crack open mussels and other hard shelled molluscs.
3. Saimiri sciureus (squirrel monkey), Kortlandt and Kooij (1963).
This species was once seen using a stick to dislodge ants from some fruit. Pongo pygmaeus (orang-utan), Kortlandt and Kooij (1963). Gorilla gorilla (gorilla), Kortlandt and Kooij (1963). These species have been seen once or twice using a branch to rake in fruit they could not easily reach.
4. Cebus sp.? (cebus monkey), Thorington (1968), in Lancaster. Cercocebus sp.? (mangabey), Kortlandt and Kooij (1963). Colobus sp.? (colobus monkey), Kortlandt and Kooij (1963). Papio? sp.? (baboon), Kortlandt and Kooij (1963). Pan troglodytes (chimpanzees), Suzuki (1966), van Lawick-Goodall (1968, 1970), Jones and Pi (1969).Individuals of all these species have been observed using pieces of wood, twigs,or branches as probes usually at ant or termite nests. In the case of the chimpanzee, tool-using is not exceptional. Animals in several widely dispersed populations are known to use fairly large sticks to probe ant, termite and bee nests. Those insects or the honey that clings to the tools are eaten. In addition, the chimps studied by van Lawick-Goodall also use fine grass stems and twigs which they insert into the tunnels of the nests of some termite species.”
Tracing Human use of tools:
Stone and wood were the first tools ever used by early humans. Some of these tools were set in bone or wood but predominantly they were made from stone. They were used as hammers to crack nuts and as crude ineffective weapons in hunting small animals. Stone tools and other artifacts offer evidence about how early humans made things, how they lived, how they interacted with their surroundings and evolved over time.
The first unquestionable stone tools were evidently made and used by early transitional humans. While the earliest sites with these tools are from Gona the River Region of Ethiopia. These early tool makers were selective in choosing particular rock materials for their artifacts. They usually chose hard water worn creek cobbles made out of volcanic rock. Humans began crafting tools and weapons from about 2.5million years ago. Many of the tools were made from rock and were used to break brittle ore. Although early implements were utilitarian in appearance and basic in function, they paved the way for the development of the complex technologies humans use today
Oldowan tradition: The most important tools in the oldowan tradition were sharp edged stone flakes produced in the process of making core tools. These simple flake tools were used without further modification as knives. They were essential for butchering large animals
Acheulian tradition: It was named after the saint “Acheul”, site in the south west France where these kinds of tools had been discovered in the 19 century. However, the Acheulian tool making tradition was first developed in East Africa. Perhaps the most important of the Acheulian tools were hand axes. Hand axes were multipurpose implements used for light chopping of wood, digging up roots, and bulbs, butchering animals, cracking nuts and small bones.
Hammer stones. These massive tools were used to create other tools such as choppers which was accomplished by whacking hammer stones against other stones to chip off flakes of material. Later developments in the Acheulian era saw early humans choosing specific types of stone from which to make other tools stones like flint and other flaking stones like quartz.
Choppers. Are roughly spherical tools with one sharp edge they are some of the earliest stone tools from the oldowan technological period. They were used for cutting up plants as well as for killing, skinning and cutting up animals
Hand Axes. They were similar to choppers with one sharp side but were much larger. Humans used them for cutting up plants and sturdy tree matter butchering animals and digging into soils
Africans were known for crafting unique weaponry during the pre-colonial era which were then used for various activities like war, grazing, traditional ceremonies and some even for prestige. Most notable weapons were the spears made using a long wooden sheath and a metallic head as well as the bow and arrows and shields often made from animal hide.
The knife. Is a tool with a cutting edge attached to a handle? Mankind’s first tool, knives were used at least two and a half million years ago as evidenced by the oldowan tools originally made of rock, bone, flint, and obsidian, over the centuries. Knife blades have been made from bronze, copper iron and steel ceramics
A primary aspect of the knife as a tool includes dining, used either in food preparation or as cutlery for example; Bread knife, Boning knife, Butchers knife; Cleaver knife. Hoe and Agriculture. The hand hoe is regarded as the main farm implement in all the countries. The hoe comes in many different forms, which are both made locally by blacksmiths out of scrap or steel, 90% of agriculture is done by hoes in Uganda.
Needles used in art. Needle work may include textile crafts such as crochet, worked with a hook or tatting worked with a shuttle. Axes. They vary in sizes and are used for cutting shrubs and clearing fields before planting.
Tools, social harmony and government initiatives.
The case of a family dinner that is served on the following tools, Dinning set, the plates, the dishes, the fork and knife and the chairs. This is the most basic example where tools have created social harmony. In the same vein production and professions have been defined along the tools that are used in doing the task at hand as shall be discussed ahead… Today, after school, at whatever level of education, the former student will be ready to move to a designated area of work, where a set of tool kits shall be availed to him or her and that shall mark the individual’s career path until retirement. So, they shall be labeled as drivers, plumbers, black smiths, electricians, pilots, astronauts, Engineers, doctors, journalists, news anchors, miners, beauticians, chefs, systems administrators and chain production casual laborers. The white collars will sit behind desks with computer screens in front of them, others with phones, while some others will have push button type of equipment behind a desk. Whatever job that it might be, it will be organized around a particular set of tools. Children growing up are given basic tools to play with so as to develop their intelligence and vocational skills.
Equipment designers are becoming more and more aware of the roles played by tools in creating harmony and a sense of comfort/belonging as such many of the equipment designs are personalized, well curved equipment, easy to handle, access to spare parts, adjustable, come in different colours ,named after people, come with instruction books and toll free numbers or emails on which to report complaints. This is an effort to cater for the ergonomics of the individual users and any psychological effect that the tool might have on the user among other related user concerns. Other tools due to advancing technology can be instructed to perform the required tasks or be used as multipurpose tools to do more than one task. Computer numerically controlled tools (CNC) that started in japan in the 1950’s are now a big part of the chain production systems and also a big part of several tools used in metal cutting such as the lathe.
Therefore advancement in economic development is directly linked to societies’ capacity to develop tools that are necessary to exploit a particular resource that is available to them. Necessity is the mother of invention according to Greek philosopher Plato, hence tools have been born out of the need to exploit resources that are available to human kind in a particular set of environment. If you engaged an astronaut in a conversation they would tell you that there is plenty of opportunity in outer space, such as mining for new minerals, large scale farming, depositing of nuclear waste, plastic waste, construction of high pollutant industry or possibly settlement but the tools to make some of these ideas possible are not available. As an afterthought we are hoping that big budget organizations such OPEC, NATO, African Union, ASEAN,UN can expand their mandates to look into outer space as the next frontier and not leave it to individual nations or private sector . We, don’t see any more justification for big budget military expenditure or justification for soldiers dieing in civil conflict on earth. The real hero soldier should die trying to conquer another planet, If there was a military challenge, finding and creating habitation in another planet would be the real hero challenge.
Responsible governments have gone ahead to create structures and systems whose role is to develop and oversee the tools that are necessary in production. Mahatam Ghandi a, politician set India on an economic path by participating and using handlooms to produce his own khadi clothes, a locally designed weaving tool.
Many governments pay attention to capital investment in their annual budget lines. Machine tool production is one of the leading production indicators used by economist to gauge the health status of the global economy. Current statistics as per the World machine tool survey (2017) show the following countries as the leading producers of machine tools.
1. China … .17,880 billion euros
2. Germany ….11,810 billion euros
3. Japan……….11,391 billion euros
4. Italy …….....5,491 billion euros
5. USA ………..5,170 billion euros and the list goes-on to South Korea, Taiwan, Switzerland, Spain and Australia.
The global demand for tools is equally growing exponentially according to the report. Countries such as South Korea, Taiwan,India have founded their national domestic industrial policy on the research of academics such as Raj and Sen (1961), Ac Atkison, Grigory feldman, Prasanta Mahalanobis 1955/56 ( Capital goods biased strategy of development) which focuses on emphasizing a countries investment growth rate to be based on its rate of capital growth output level as opposed to considering investment growth rate to be based on a countries’ savings. Therefore the higher the investment in capital goods the higher would be the returns in capital goods output hence a formidable higher return to the national income in the long run.
Brief history of tools used in Mining, Harvesting,Construction,Hospitals/medicine
Construction tools
Building materials back in time included bones such as mammoth ribs, hide, stone metal bark, bamboo clay, lime plaster and more. For example the first ridges made by humans were probably just wooden logs placed across a stream and later timber track ways. In addition to living in caves and rock shelters, the first building were simple shelters, tents and huts built with mad and grass as roofing. The first mud bricks were formed with the hands and still used today locally.
Wood: is one of the oldest and most commonly used construction tool in the world. Wood is used in building and construction work commonly referred to as timber (or lumber in the US and Canada). Before wood is used for building and construction work, it has to be felled from the forest, processed and seasoned (the process of removing moisture from the wood) it is then made into logs and planks and sold on the market. Timber is used in roof and ceiling construction, door and window frames, among others. Today, with the innovation of new machinery, chainsaws and other modern equipment are being used in the processing of this wood for timber ready for construction.
Glass
Glass is believed to have been invented in Africa, Egypt and current Syria and later developing into a lucrative business through glass blowing in other parts of the world. The oldest pieces of glass have been found in those two countries.
Plumbing: This refers to the system of pipes, drains, fittings, valves and devices being installed in a building for the distribution of water for drinking, heating, washing and the removal of human and domestic waste (sewage). The main categories of plumbing systems include; potable cold and hot tap water supply; drainage venting; septic systems; rainwater; and fuel gas piping among others. The common tools used in modern plumbing today include: copper, brass and plastic, which is highly used because it is cheap, flexible, easy to install, has a low cost, and does not rust like most metals and can last for a very long time. A lot of plumbing materials supplied to African markets are manufactured locally or imported from overseas.
Steel and Metal: They are widely used in building and construction. Steel is commonly used to make reinforced concrete that supports structures in building bridges, dams, buildings among others. Steel is made up of iron combined with a small percentage of carbon. Hard steel is used to make tools with cutting edges.
Measuring box: Is used to measure the quantity of cement, sand and aggregates used for making concrete mix.
Masonry Trowel: The masonry trowel is used in brick work or stone work spreading, leveling and shaping mortar or concrete.it is made up of steel and wooden handle provided for holding. The ends of s trowel maybe pointed or bull nosed
Wheelbarrow: Is a small hand propelled vehicle with one wheel designed to be pushed by a single person using two handles at the rear.it is used to transport bulk weight of materials like cement, sand, mortar, and concrete
Concrete mixer: Is a device that mixes cement aggregates such as sand, gravels and water to form concrete? It uses a revolving drum to mix the components
Drill machine. Is used to make holes in the walls, slabs, doors, window frames among others Vibrator: A concrete vibrator is a construction tool typically used on construction pouring sites. It’s used to ensure that concrete remains strong and has a smooth finish after removal of the form work. There so many construction tools that have evolved over time and it’s impossible to exhaust all of them.
Mining tools
The traditional method of cracking rock was fire setting which involved heating the rock with fire to expand it. Once the rock was heated with fire it was quenched with water to break it fire setting was one of the most effective rock breaking methods until 1867 when Alfred Nobel invented the dynamite.
Traditional tools used in mining
Rocker: Also known as a cradle separated gold from dirt. This tool consisted of a box for shaking dirt and water back and forth so miners could find gold fragments. A miner would load the rocker with water and soil, another would rock the box, bucket load after bucket load to search for signs of precious metal. About 200 buckets of rockers could be rocked per day
Pickaxes: Were known as gold standard for early mining in the 1800s. The pick axe was manually wielded blow after blow to chip away at rocks and uncover any gold that might be attached to them
Stamps: Were used in California gold mines around 1850.first developed in England and used by Cornish miners, stamps were heavy iron machines used to pound rocks containing gold, quartz into fine dust so the gold ore could be extracted. Small stamps were commonly powered by water wheels while larger ones ran by steam machines
Drills: Miners drilled by hand or used compressed air drills. They drilled in sunken shafts to extract gold from the quartz rock which was known as quartz or hard rock mining
Pans: Panning for gold was known as placer mining. Early miners sat by riverbeds, scooping wet soil into shallow metal pans. They swirled the pans washing away the dirt to hopefully discover particles of gold. Though more complex equipment was eventually invented, pans were still a useful tool to distinguish gold from dirt
Mining. Each type of mining tools comes with its own t of mining activities. The most common types of mining equipment vary depending on whether the work is being carried above or below the ground. Minerals include gold, metals, coal or crude oil and others. Some of the modern mining tools are, from drilling machines, to excavators, crushing and grinding equipment the mining industry comes complete with all the right tools.
Mining drills: Drills are commonly used in underground mining. Underground mining is carried out when rocks or minerals are located at a fair distance beneath the ground. But then they need to be brought to the surface with underground specialized mining equipment such as trucks, loaders, diggers and others are used to excavate the material. Underground mining techniques have progressed significantly within the years including using remote controlled machinery and fracking used in oil exploration.
Drills assist in creating holes descending underground. Drills can also be used in ensuring the holes are large enough to serve as a port for miners to enter.
Directional mining is also a type of mining technology where miners will use the tools and certain methods to drill wells
Blasting tools: They are an essential part in the mining industry and are used to break down and fracture materials (usually rocks) by use of a calculated amount of explosive to liberate the sought after product from the waste material. Blasting is also used to remove pockets of unwanted material that are preventing mining machines and personnel to get to the seam containing the materials of interest. Once this process has been completed, an excavator is used to recover the blasted rocks and other debris that has been dislodged during the blasting. Blasting equipment is used for both underground and open pit mining operations and is known to be the most hazardous technique in mining
Earth movers: Earth movers are heavy mining equipment and work hand in hand with bulldozers. Earth movers are normally used for removing over burden or waste material. For above ground mining, earth movers are used to carry loose soil and earth from one location to another. Earth movers play an important role in the mining industry because the equipment is specifically designed to work on large earth moving and mining projects for a faster and more practical process. Used for digging pushing and transporting the earth
Crushing equipment: Crushing equipment is used to crush rock and stone. Designed to achieve maximum productivity and high reduction rate. Crushing equipment is specially configured to break down the hard rock matter or gravel to a manageable size for transportation and conveying.
Harvesting tools.
Different crops require different harvesting tools. Baskets were used for harvesting and are still used today by tea harvesters. However, crates have replaced the use of baskets in modern day harvesting. Crates are used for distribution; storage and organization most commonly used are plastic crates. They are use in food production can be washed and sanitized easily, and makes it difficult for germs and dirt to cling to the plastic
Sickle: The most common tool in harvesting is the sickle, the small sickle, big sickle. The hand sickle is used to harvest crops like wheat, maize, barley, pulses and grass among others. Hand hoe is used to dig, help in uprooting food crops that grow underground like cassava, potatoes among others. Move and mix the soil.
What role would a body charged with the responsibility of overseeing tools development in developing countries play?
This question would depend on the country. I will site an example of a brick making business that is based in a small village or a banana growing farm. These two types of businesses; based on my knowledge of the production structures until today use simple technologies to produce. The brick maker will make the bricks out of soil, lay them in the sun to dry and then later pile them up in some form of furnace and bake the bricks with lots of wood to finally produce useable bricks. An institution charged with the responsibility to oversee tools development would take some of the burden off the businessman/ entrepreneur by designing standard tools that can be used to produce the bricks. Then it would be clear to all consumers of what standard type of brick, size, strength, time of baking that each brick has under gone. The furnaces used, for example in the local manufacturing process may not evenly distribute the heat as a result some bricks are usually stronger than others based on the proximity to heat, A burden that can be eased by an authorizing body that will take on the role of designing and encouraging the use of standard furnaces. These technologies can be traditionally appropriate and easy to use systems depending on the various economic activities. History has shown that tool development responds to a need with in a given environment, if we are to follow Plato’s logic. This process of development has not stopped. The leading machine tools producing countries are producing based on the needs and demands of their economies and global business. It is imperative for developing economies to recognize that their own domestic products could be produced much efficiently, to meet international standards if there is a deliberate effort to develop home grown tools that might not yet be on the international market. A banana farmer (grower) for example would like to have a tool available to him in the market place that can be used to harvest the bunch of banana without causing damage to it. Such a standard tool is not available in the market to the farmers or a casing for the safe transfer of the banana such as an egg tray or beer casing. Such is the catalyst (need) that saw the production of industrial tools such as cow milking, shearing equipment and wheat, corn, sugarcane harvesters. It would therefore add value to the economy if an institution is charged with this responsibility of carrying out researching and developing efficient and traditionally appropriate tools, for various economic activities within a country. There are several examples of economic activities that would require specialized tools to accrue a high return on investment. In the same line of thought to have a prosperous and well developed cottage industry, standard tools would be a necessity. The production of traditionally appropriate tools can also be contracted to another country as an option. The process of contracting production to much developed states has been undertaken by developed states such as European Union, UK, USA, that until today produce some of their product parts in Asian countries such as China, Taiwan and South Korea.
Edited by:
Byaruhanga Edgar Walter:
A product of Development Initiatives Africa
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