© 1975-1979, 2008 Robert A. Freitas Jr. All Rights Reserved.

Robert A. Freitas Jr., Xenology: An Introduction to the Scientific Study of Extraterrestrial Life, Intelligence, and Civilization, First Edition, Xenology Research Institute, Sacramento, CA, 1979; http://www.xenology.info/Xeno.htm

20.3  Early Technological Civilizations

Technology, or the artificial modification of the biosphere, is a unique method for achieving balance between population pressure and ecological forces. As suggested earlier, it may be used as a population reducing technique. However, the most important sociological function of technology is to increase production. This is of critical importance in alien social evolution, Xenosociologists believe there are at least four fundamental requirements for the evolution of a technological civilization on a planet bustling with lifeforms:

1. Motivation or behavioral predisposition to use tools;
2. Manipulatory organs preadapted for tool-using;
3. Sufficient physical resources to build technology; and
4. Sufficient energy to power the technology.

High individual intelligence is not a fundamental requirement. Ants, bees, termites and other social insects have evolved technologies such as architecture, carpentry, dairy farming, and the domestication of other animals for "equestrian" purposes⁵⁶⁵ without advanced personal sentience. Great intelligence is certainly an enormous asset in the creation of a technical civilization, but it is not essential.

Early technological cultures may arise in any of three planetary environments: Telluric civilization (land), aquatic civilization (sea), or avian civilization (air).

Last updated on 6 December 2008