So recently at my law school while studying a case regarding deforestation we had a sociologist come and explain us some issues relating to ecologism and environmentalism. While I agreed with most of what was said I found a claim particularly suspicious. The speaker in questions said that one of the defining characterists of modern society was it parting away with tradition, and its rapid changes. He said that the Romans hardly changed at all during 200 years while western society nowadays changes its social costumes in the time span of decades. I off handedly find this rather an over simplification, maybe there is a name to this sort of fallacy? When one believes that modern phenomenons are unprecedented in history? I offhandedly thought of a passage in the Story of Genji, written in the XI century, when during a confucionist ritual, the confussian scholars are mocked by courtesans for being old fashioned and stale and wearing clothes out of fashion. But I was rather curious about the example given regarding the Roman empire. This professor said that from the time of Jesus until 200 years later Roman soldiers equipment where practically the same. So I was curious to know how much the Roman empire changed with in its 700 or 800 year history…
In my field of study (anthropology), we rely heavily on material culture and artifacts to determine the answer to questions like this. Since we deal with a wider swath of time than historians do, it's likely that many people who believe that change has speeded up have read some anthropology on this topic. Many anthropologists would agree.
For example, when the first use of paint pigment is observed (in Africa), it's red ochre. For about 20,000 years it's just red ochre. That's a long time to have only one paint color, and yet, as far as I know, when painting appears in Europe and Australia, it's also red ochre, for a long time. Then, in Europe, fairly rapidly (within about 7,000 years after the red ochre appears), yellow umber and brown umber appear. So relatively quickly, Europe pulled ahead by having 3-5 colors in their cave art and wall art palette.
Clay is widespread in the world, and people must have encountered it as soon as there were people in clay-bearing places. Yet, forming it into containers happens much later than the first appearance of people (let's say 20,000BP) and firing clay with glazes appears rapidly after the appearance of clay pots in Asia (within 2000 years after the pots appear, the glazes appear; no place else has glazes and it will be perhaps 5000 years before they do). Meanwhile, Asia will stock itself with various glazes and begin trade in pottery. The pottery will be rapidly accepted where ever it appears, and the other places will begin to fire pottery once they see the innovation.
Still, a typical settlement at 6,000 years ago had no where near the material culture of a typical apartment in the present. Many anthropologists have pointed out that Australian aborigines had only 16-20 main tools for survival, and that most of European descent cannot survive in the Outback with those tools (nor can they find the raw materials nor do they possess the skills to make the tools right away). A very long time passed on the Australian continent without a lot of change in technology (about 40,000 years).
Minor changes vs. major changes cause debate in all fields of prehistory and history. Is a small change to an ax to be counted as much as the invention of an entirely new tool? Certainly, there were innovations in military culture in that 700-800 year Roman history, but how significant were they? This is a matter for debate and analysis.
Certainly, we've had an explosion of material culture (globally) in the 20th-21st centuries. No other period on the planet resembles it in terms of major new categories of technology, the sheer number of implements and other materials, and so on. The distance from which objects come and the depth into which those objects are found in the social hierarchy is extraordinary, compared to the 19th century (which is already a fast-moving century).
You might try asking more on /r/askanthropology