By Félix Dufour

Publié le 16 juin 2026

Today, people do not need to put in more effort than a workday to obtain meat, because they just need to pay for their meat at the grocery store and it is done. However, it has not been always the case. In the past, when people wanted meat, they went hunting with weapons, and once time the animal killed, they ate it raw. Through time, humans have discovered fire thanks to lightning, and they have learned how to make it accidentally by rubbing two rocks together. From this discovery, humans have started to cook their meat, an ability which has contributed to developing their brain. And from the Neolithic to now, humans have practiced agriculture to obtain meat more easily and in higher quantities. The current process of obtaining meat for humans has evolved a lot, but there is a consistency throughout evolution: it all started with rocks. 

Earth was initially just a cluster of rocks orbiting the Sun. Through time, Earth has accumulated more rocks on it to obtain its actual size and its surface to eventually host water, soil, mountains, trees and of course, life. For humans, their presence on Earth could not be possible without Earth’s geology as much as without water, without greenhouse effect and without Sun. However, humans have evolved like every animal and in return, geology has become more than a factor among many others permitting them to live. Geology became a human evolution guideline. First, because the lithosphere hides the best solution to slow global warming, second, because rocks ensure human’s needs from their appearance, and third, because humans depend on rocks to exploit their intelligence.

First, geology can help humans move towards a sustainable environment. As climate change has become a major issue during the 21st century, people have not waited long to start searching for solutions, and geology has a remedy to reverse climate change’s effects, and maybe even, the most effective of all: geothermal energy. Cindy Taff defends this position so much that she has left Shell to work as a geothermal trailblazer. In a TED talk dedicated to her and geothermal energy, she calls geothermal the “next-generation geothermal” and she has also demonstrated that this energy can do what other renewable ones cannot do: providing energy eternally. When the sun is not shining and the wind is not blowing, respectively, solar panels and wind turbines cannot produce energy. However, heat from the lithosphere is always there and it will never disappear. With heat from the Earth’s depths, humans will be able to evolve from polluters #1 to Earth’s savers. But the best is that geothermal energy is, like oil and gas, extracted by fracking, digging, and drilling. In this way, starting to use geothermal energy is not unknown to humans. The state is clear: rocks have the power to, maybe, reverse climate change effects if we are ready to use what it offers to us as solutions. 

Second, geology has always answered humans’ needs. During the paleolithic, humans used practically just material at the Earth’s surface, but here comes the neolithic with the beginning of agriculture and sedentarization. Since then, material at the surface was not enough for humans and so, they have started to explore Earth’s cellar and the lithosphere have revealed to them culver, manganese, cobalt, strontium and more. “It is in the neolithic period that materials and tools development have accelerated a lot, because for 10 000 years, objects were made with less than five resources” says Christian Tremblay, research professional in Earth sciences at the Université du Québec à Chicoutimi (UQAC), during an interview. Mr. Tremblay even added that “we went from the bows made of lithic and perishable materials to tiny objects made with the near totality of periodic board elements” [Translation]. In one of his presentations, he shows that among the 118 chemical elements, 43 are contained in one cellphone. Also, there are materials such as silicium for which we depend so much more nowadays. Silicium is contained in the semi-conductors: these pieces responsible for energy conduction in electronic devices and so, for ensuring operations of cellphones, cars, and dishwashers. Even if silicium was already used before the neolithic, one thing is sure for Mr. Tremblay: “humans could never have evolved towards a society dependent on technology without silicium transformation” [Translation].  

Third, humans are the world’s smartest animal, and its intelligence has depended so much on rocks. If we look at the first humans, they already had a good sense of logic and creativity. The most approved theory demonstrates that humans have started to use lithic material, especially to cut, because they understood that a rock’s sharp side can cut. In short, humans have used rocks for2,5 million years, but their intelligencerather started in the neolithic thanks to rocks. This is notably due to metallurgy, the current method practiced to separate rocks’ components, which has marked a huge turn: from now on, humans were able to transform the solid matter from its natural form to accomplish another task, a job that no other animal knows. For example, humans have started to transform culver into great electric conductors, to mix iron, aluminum, vanadium, chrome and other elements to obtain ideal steel in construction and to use tungsten as an excellent X-rays' emitter. These actions have brought humans to a dominant grad among every animal and if rocks were conscious, they would certainly ask humans to thank themselves. 

In conclusion, geology guides human evolution by contributing to raising their intelligence, by answering their needs, and by offering them a major help against their worst invention, which also started, ironically, with rocks.  

Without rocks, people cannot build workable weapons or create fire . So, whether it is a simple stone, mineral, silicium, or any rocks, people should not underestimate their mentors. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Premiers outils de la préhistoire - Hominides  

First tools that humans have created were just rocks found and used in their raw state. Later, they have used tools to build another one and since neolithic, they have started to create tools with many resources. 

Tungstène : Produits et applications | Plansee

Tungstene is used in medical industry to make excellent X-Rays pictures. Its high melting point is notably the cause of why Tugsten is the best element to use in radiography. 

MÉTALLURGIE | Techniques - Universalis Edu  

While humans discover new elements, they have started to separate rock components individually and to transform them to obtain precise properties. This process is called metallurgy, and it has led to new tools, more complex and more efficient for their accorded use. 

Le Silicium : Du Microprocesseur aux Panneaux Solaires, un Élément Essentiel de la Technologie Moderne - La Chimie

Due to its semi-conductivity property and its abundance, silicium is used to create semi-conductors which ensure that all electronic devices are functional. 

My academic source is the TED talk that I studied in my TEDge 

Cindy Taff: How to power the world 24/7 — without oil | TED Talk 

Geothermal energy will be able to replace oil and gas in the future. In addition of providing energy, geothermal can do it eternally, its benefic for the planet, and its extraction works like oil and gas. As extracting oil from the lithosphere is a habit from the 40’s for humans, starting to extract geothermal will not be difficult.

In this scene of the documentary “La Grande Aventure de l’Homme” by Jean-Baptiste de Panafieu, we see how humans have discovered the tool. This is the same theory defended in the article #1: humans have used a raw object and have understood i what they can be useful. In this scene, the human has accidently cut itself with the sharp side of a rock and its reasoing was the next one: if this rock has cut myself, it will be able to cut another thing. 

Vidéos Bing

For the interview, I have talked with Christian Tremblay, research professional in Earth sciences at the Université du Québec à Chicoutimi (UQAC) during 20 minutes. He also sends me a PowerPoint presentation in which I have extracted information for my text 

PP_21_mars_2023.pptx 

In this presentation, he shows that 43 elements over 118 from the periodic board (36,44%) are necessary to build one cellphone. A proof that humans depend so much on rocks to make technology functional.