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Here's the great thing about wood: every age is the wood age. We have always put the most advanced tool technology of the age toward working with wood, because
by pclmulqdq 3y ago
Here's the great thing about wood: every age is the wood age. We have always put the most advanced tool technology of the age toward working with wood, because wood has been eternally useful. And in turn, wood-based technology has advanced with the tools used to craft it. In a symbiotic relationship, those uses of wood advance the uses of other materials, too.
Almost every building today (most of them are small house-like structures) is made of wood, and it has been that way for recorded history. Wood shows up in many places where you would expect humans to have come up with a more advanced material today, too.
In that way, classifying a "wood age" is not all that useful.
- retrac 3y agoThe electrical distribution grid where I live is mostly wood and pottery.
- bee_rider 3y agoProbably every, or at least almost every, age is the wood age by bulk. But in terms of high-tech manufacturing, every age could probably be called the ceramic age. Pottery, glass, spaceship tiles, computer chips. Metals get outsized attention I think because we use them to kill each other, so switching to a new metal is quite dramatic.
- bckr 3y agoUranium being a recent example
- gavindean90 3y agoMetallurgy is a very specific form of ceramics. Glass too.
- Findeton 3y agoIn Europe almost no building is made of wood, except for decorative floors.
- carlosjobim 3y agoThere are many countries in Europe where most buildings are made of wood.
- codesnik 3y agomost buildings? any example of such a country?
- gylterud 3y agoNorway. At least most buildings where people live. That’s not exactly the same statement that most people live in wood buildings, since more people can live in a single concrete block. But I would venture that at least half the population lives in wooden buildings.
- varjag 3y agoIf you want a detached house (or a townhouse) in Norway it means wood.
- Maxion 3y agoNorway, Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia etc. etc.
- emj 3y agoNot all but many of small houses are wood and 50% of the Swedish population lives in these houses[1], some of the bigger houses are wood as well. Construction relies heavily on wood. This was not my experience in many other countries, even when there was wood in the vicinity. I think the readily availability of spruce and pine is one reason. It would be interesting to know statistics from Denmark because in the south of Sweden wood is that used as much. You can see this in the tradition of constructing fences as well, if there is a lot of wood people use lots of it. In the south near Denmark the tradition is to use as little as possible. [1] https://www.scb.se/hitta-statistik/sverige-i-siffror/manniskorna-i-sverige/boende-i-sverige/ https://www.scb.se/hitta-statistik/sverige-i-siffror/mannisk...
- kragen 3y agomost buildings in america are concrete and/or brick, though the usa is an exception. in most of america, wood is used only for roofs and illegal slums, and even most slums are mostly brick i don't know what the situation is on other continents but i've sure seen a lot of photos and videos of concrete and brick buildings
- xboxnolifes 3y agoIn dense US cities maybe. Most US homes are built with wood. ~90% of US home constructions are wood framed.
- kragen 3y agoin the comment you are replying to, i specifically said that the usa is an exception to this general rule
- xboxnolifes 3y agoAh, I misread. I rarely come across america used to refer to the collective continents.
- mc32 3y agoThe collective continents are not America, but The Americas, given that it is collection or South America and North America with an isthmus connecting them. I believe Brazilian Portuguese and South American Spanish also use the plural to refer to the set of continents.
- kragen 3y agono
- amanaplanacanal 3y agoI was under the impression that the plural was common in English, but the singular was more common in Spanish. I could certainly be wrong though.
- ronald_raygun 3y agoThe Devonian certainly wasnt a wood age