Lewis Mumford (following the Scottish sociologist Patrick Geddes) coined the terms eotechnology for the water-and-wood complex and paleotechnology for the coal and iron complex. (See Technics and Civilization, p.11)
should the history of technology be compared to evolution?
This is the basis of André Leroi-Gourhan's analysis of technology in terms of milieu and matière . In his anthropogical account, Gourhan claims that technology always proceed in the direction of progress. Once a "better mousetrap" is invented, a social group will not go back to the older one.