If you could introduce one invention to the ancient world what would it be?

[Dwarfman]

Fire to the early caveman.
They would worship me as a god!

So you'll be changing your name to Prometheus then?

 

[DTWolfwood]

i've always been curious what would happen if the ancient romans had Gunpowder.

 

[ShaqLevick]

General relativity... That would really help the world. Because knowledge is power.

 

[kannibus]

Microkinis.

That's pretty much all I can think of.

 

[ShaqLevick]

Fire to the early caveman.
They would worship me as a god!

Yeah, we've been cooking with fire for a long time now. Long before we lived far enough north to be cave dwellers. Hell, long before homo sapien.

 

[Ray De Ation]

Perhaps this is rather more selfish than the OP intended, but I would just bring back a hand-cranked torch and get myself declared a living god.

 

[The Unworthy Gentleman]

I would give the Mayans a electronic calender so the wouldn't of half assed the one they made, making this moronic 2012 phobia gone!

Have you seen all the dumbass theories? That would only take one or two away, three if we're lucky. Sometimes I think Assassin's Creed has the least absurd expectation for 2012.

I'd probably give them the gift of knowledge. Y'know... mathematical knowledge. This way we get a massive amount of progress before it should happen and we either destroy ourselves or have an amazing lifestyle on Yukofar, the distant purple planet of Galaxy 97-L.

 

[Plurralbles]

I'd give them Steam engines. They already had tinker toys at least, probably more, so giving htem a bigger, functional device wouldn't be a stretch.

 

[GamemasterAnthony]

A time machine? I hate having to choose just one thing.

You wouldnt be able to se it, obviously.
You would have to give it away. . .
Now i on the other hand have a time watch i stole from Captain Jack Harkness so i will travel back in time and steam your Time Machine, and than name myself The Master.

Now i on the other hand would like to give away the technology of intergalactic space travel ;D

I knew...I just KNEW someone was going to do a Doctor Who reference upon mention of a time machine.

Personally...I wouldn't bring any invention back in time, but I would wonder what would happen if you brought back certain CONCEPTS? Say, go to the early years of England's male dominated society and mention how well the world's done after women have been given equal right...and then coyly mention what Lorena Bobbit did if they laugh at the idea and see their reaction afterwards.

 

[Outright Villainy]

Time for practicality people!

Also, take the credit.

 

[Addicted Muffin]

give them a space shuttle...imagine how far we would come in 10000 years...

 

[Something Amyss]

But with much sparser population and much easier means of death, couldn't the human race have easily fizzled out in it's early stages?

Is that a bad thing?

OT: Plumbing.

 

[Phoenix14]

video camera sounds good but problematic cause your gonna need to charge the batteries sooner or later

lol that's a very good point...I didn't think of that.

 

[lolelemental]

RPG's to those ancestors in the ice age. I mean think how cool it would be to shoot a mammoth with an RPG.

And wasteful, you wouldn't get too much edible meat out of doing that.

 

[badgersprite]

The DVD Rewinder to the first modern humans, because I totally couldn't resist trolling history with the most useless thing possible.

 

[TAGM]

Simple, the internet. The sooner people learn about furries, /b/, and verious other things, the sooner we learn who cares, who does, who should be shot, ect...
Actualy, I'm not sure it would work quite like that, but fuck it - worth a shot, right?