Many innovations could have taken place earlier, but no one thought of them.
My favorite example is the hot air balloon. Four thousand years ago, an Egyptian Pharaoh had the wealth to build one. So did a Chinese emperor. The builders could have followed the same false physics as the Montgolfier brothers and captured rising smoke in a big bag.
Moreover, a Pharaoh could have used a balloon to observe an enemy in war or to escape a beseiged city, as in 1871. Early balloons would have had military value.
Had he designed a balloon to look like a bird, he would have gained a observation post that could handle wind, like the barrage balloons of World War I.
If his balloon had wings, he could have created a dirigible that glided forward as it rose up and sank down, like the dirigible built in the US in the 1860s (and like contemporary uncrewed undersea vehicles). Of course, a dirigible that rises up and down has little range. Probably, it could go nor more that no more than 5 — 10 miles (10 — 15 kilometers). But such a vehicle could have been built four millenia ago.
Here is a list:
Rather than think of lift as coming from lighter density air, the notion would be to capture rising smoke. Since smoke does not have much lift, the bag would need to be big and light. People wove linen. Moreover, the smoke should not escape the bag; it needs to be made airtight, which can be done with a sap or glue.
Ancient fountains ran with cold water. A hot water fountain would have been very expensive. A metallic valve can be ground smooth, so it holds water. If screw threads are too difficult, the value can be closed with a lever, and held closed with a spring made from wood or whalebone.
In places with a cold enough winter, people always froze food. The modern key is rapid freezing. The result is food that tastes better. As far as I know, no one discovered this until the 19th century.
Even after rapid freezing was discoverd in the 19th century, and even though cities through out the world had `ice houses' by that time, I do not know of any business that sold frozen foods to be preserved within them.
The earlier and traditional alternatives were salting and drying. The 19th century alternative was canning. None of these methods required cold storage. They were used extensively. On the other hand, freezing would have preserved vegetables and meats all winter that would have tasted good when cooked.
Edison built his first phonograph using a needle and a wax cylinder. My hunch is that the invention was delayed until after people learned about sound waves.
For millenia, food was preserved through drying. The vacuum pump was invented in the 1600s and rates of vaporization were measured shortly thereafter. Because a vacuum increases water's rate of vaporization, food placed into a vacuum dries more quickly.
Moreover, dried food stays preserved for a long time and does not need to be kept cold. After being rehydrated and cooked, it tastes good. Such food does need to be kept in a sealed container, but such containers existed.
A successful sewing machine required three features: a needle to take a loop through the material, a way to loop that thread around a bobbin holding the second thread, and use of a second thread.
What could be built now, which we have not conceived?
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