Q: This invention, dating back tens of thousands of years, was crucial for human development and progress and allowed them to plan and organize in ways never known before. What was it?
A: Bags. Allowed them to carry many tools with them.
Mobile containers — bags, slings, and boxes — are a keystone human innovation reflecting human foresight.
The oldest evidence for mobile containers is some 100,000 years old, but its roots may be much more ancient.
Bags introduced the idea of using a tool in the future, which further inspired our ancestors to safeguard and refine those tools.
But archaeological evidence shows we have been using mobile containers — bags and other carrying devices — for tens of thousands of years.
Without bags, such a lifestyle would have meant only a couple of tools could be kept on the body at any one time. Anything else would have to be made when and where it was needed or left at strategic locations.
These carrying devices allowed our forebears to have tools and resources at the ready wherever they went. The dramatic exploitation of this concept has allowed humans to create a world full of containers transporting endless amounts of stuff — big and small — to where we want it to go.
Without the invention of bags, we’d still be running in the woods with our hands full.
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