Technology is one of the impulsive forces behind civilization. It was advances in the technologies of agriculture and fishing that allowed cities to grow and thrive. Advancing in weaponry and masonry allowed some cities to drive off the jealous barbarians who sought to steal their food and plunder their wealth. Advances in medicine and sanitation that fought off the other great threat to the civilization that is diseases.
However advancing in technology make a civilization stronger, bigger, smarter, and a much tougher opponent. The most histories of technology are Euro-centrist focusing on a main line of western technology that stretches from the Greeks through computer. The process of inventions from early years borrowed from one culture are adopted to suit another. Western technology is combination of cross fertilization’s from the great civilizations.
Technology increases productive capabilities which allows more work to be done by the same amount of people or the same amount of work to be done by less number of people. Example for this is ancient people and food production. There was time, when getting enough food to feed the society took all effort of all people. As technology of the food increased (for example, invention of farming) it takes less effort to make the same amount of food.
First of all, this allowed population to increase because there was less of a concern of some people starving, but it also allowed people to start working on the things such as creating buildings, languages, various inventions like machinery used for both the people as well as for organizations to do the tasks easier without much effort and all of which only furthered productive capabilities in other areas.