What is the history of humanity?
War? Slavery? Politics? Conquest?
No, none of these.
The history of humanity is a history of technology.
Take Earth, for example. Before Isaac Newton, there was no concept of "science." Before Kepler and Galileo, there was no spirit of science, no scientific method. Before the Pre-Qin philosophers and Plato, there was little in the way of philosophy, little in the way of mystical thought. Speculative ideas only emerged after civilizations had matured.
But technology has always been there.
Learning to live, learning to make tools, the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, the Iron Age... These are even more powerful demarcations than any historical record. And such terms have continued into modern times: the Steam Era, the Electric Era, the Information Age...
Production power determines the relations of production; the economic base determines the superstructure. Technological advancement is closely followed by societal progress.
