I think most people's view -- and certainly mine -- is that most technologies and methods develop along similar lines. For instance, the modern printing press makes use of many techniques available in older methods. People could put ink on engraved images and print those for a long time before movable type, for instance.

However, I'm a beginner knitter, and as I finished the old screwed-up thing I started out with years ago (I've happily made rectangles of varied lengths for myself and friends since), I wondered if there were any simpler stages to this process. It seems like one of those ideas that just happened. How do you do this more simply? The cloth would fall apart. But it also seems crazy that one person one day figured out how to link yarn together like that.

So do we know how it did happen? Or do we know of any simpler versions? I'm thinking something separate from, say, "well, we only knitted, we didn't purl" or similar. The project of using two needles to weave together a single piece of yarn into a tightly-woven cloth, was there a simpler way to do that?

Hopefully this wasn't incoherent. I didn't get a lot of sleep last night...