Start with the basics: shelter, fire, water, food, clothing
Make clean water available by boiling, filtering, or settling
Build simple tools from stone, wood, bone, and metal
Learn to control fire reliably
Develop agriculture and animal domestication
Create pottery for storage and cooking
Invent writing to record knowledge
Establish counting and measurement systems
Improve metallurgy from copper to bronze to iron
Build roads, bridges, and transport systems
Create sanitation and waste disposal
Develop medicine, hygiene, and public health
Harness energy from wind, water, steam, and electricity
Build communication systems: signals, printing, telegraph, radio, internet
Develop mathematics and scientific method
Invent machines to multiply human effort
Create institutions for trade, law, education, and governance
Standardize parts, units, and procedures
Use experimentation to refine every invention
Repeat, combine, and improve existing ideas