10,000 years ago we were cavemen who lived off the land. We only had what was accesible in nature. Now we have cars, iPhones, and computers. I’m assuming everything we have now is composed of the same matter cavemen had access to. How did we get all this stuff?

Question

Apologies if this is a repost.

I just don’t get how the Earth went from being entirely nature to having the iPhone I’m typing this on. And like where did we get the internet? And how do we take pictures?

ETA: A lot of great answers but I’m not really asking about people. More about the stuff. When I picture the Earth 10,000 years ago I don’t see anything that could make my phone.

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Answer 1

The tools we use were built by using tools which were built by tools which were built by tools which… So on.

Once you go far back enough, you get to a position where you have just two rocks, and you the next step is to bash them against each other until you have a crude hand axe that’s better at shaping wood. From there, you have ten thousand years to go from sticks and stones to crudely forged iron which you can make into tongs to better manipulate hot iron, and eventually you get electron microscopes, integrated circuits and touch screens.