Designating, Relating To, Or Characterized by an Early Stage of Industrial and Technological

EOTECHNIC: (1000 to 1750)

1934 L. MUMFORD Technics & Civilization iii. 109 The demonstration that industrial civilization was not a single whole...was first made by Professor Patrick Geddes... In defining the paleotechnic and neotechnic phases, he however neglected the important period of preparation, when all the key inventions were either invented or foreshadowed. So, following the archeological parallel he called attention to, I shall call the first period the eotechnic phase: the dawn age of modern technics. Ibid. 112 At the bottom of the eotechnic economy stands one important fact: the diminished use of human beings as prime movers, and the separation of the production of energy from its application and immediate control. 1954 J. A. C. BROWN Social Psychol. Industry i. 22 The eotechnic or medieval phase of industry stretches roughly from about A.D. 1000 to 1750.

PALEOTECHNIC:

Designating, relating to, or characterized by an early stage of industrial and technological development, esp. as dominated by heavy machinery and the exploitation of mineral resources and fossil fuels. Also, in wider use: designating or relating to technology which is regarded as old-fashioned or outmoded. Cf. EOTECHNIC adj., NEOTECHNIC adj.
The term was popularized by Lewis Mumford in Technics & Civilization (1934) and applied esp. to the period prior to the late 19th cent.

1904 P. GEDDES City Devel. xxv. 175/1 Must we not, therefore, call this earlier and crude mechanical civilisation which still predominates among us the ‘Palæotechnic’ stage, and recognise that the formerly less prominent industrial peoples…are passing more quickly than we into the ‘Neotechnic’ stage? 1946 Theology 39 94 The report…praises the past but its vision for the future is lighted less by a doctrine of the creation than by paleotechnic ideology. 1973 New Society 7 June 543/2 Its automated ticket system..makes London's machines seem paleotechnic by comparison. 1998 Jrnl. Amer. Hist. 84 1537/1 Mumford rejected the ‘paleotechnic’ metropolis in favor of a ‘green’ revolution and a ‘neotechnics’ of decentralized electrical power and sustainable regional settlements.

NEOTECHNIC:

Of or relating to the development of new technology [“going green”], or to a period characterized by this; spec. of, belonging to, or designating the most recent stage of industrial or post-industrial development. Cf. PALAEOTECHNIC adj., EOTECHNIC adj.
The term was popularized by Lewis Mumford in Technics & Civilization (see quot. 1934), and applied esp. to the period between the late 19th cent. and the Second World War (1939-45).

1879 Jrnl. Anthropol. Inst. 8 343 They are now, as ever, a bone and stone-using people, reproducing the same ingenious arts which characterised the neotechnic labours of the Cro-Magnon and Mentone workmen of Europe's reindeer or mammoth periods. 1904 P. GEDDES City Devel. xxv. 175/1 Must we not...recognise that the formerly less prominent industrial peoples..are passing more quickly than we into the ‘Neotechnic’ stage? 1915 P. GEDDES Cities in Evol. iv. 64 Simply substituting -technic for -lithic, we may distinguish the earlier and ruder elements of the Industrial Age as Paleotechnic, the newer and still often incipient elements disengaging themselves from these as Neotechnic. 1934 L. MUMFORD Technics & Civilization iii. 109 In defining the paleotechnic and neotechnic phases, he [sc. Prof. Geddes]..neglected the important period of preparation, when all the key inventions were either invented or foreshadowed. 1967 Punch 27 Sept. 451/1 The country would be rejigged to meet the challenge of the neotechnic revolution. 1995 Amer. Scientist July-Aug. 383/3 Finally, the third [phase], termed the neotechnic, which began circa 1880, saw transport revolutionized by the use of electricity and petroleum.