It's technology that goes back thousands of years, here's one from the Iliad: https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext....
I love youtube manufacturing videos, saw one where they made a wooden Japanese one that has like a hopper of soot where the string is pulled through.
Early humans fill me with awe with their ingenuity.
Consider the planets. They noticed that among thousands of stars these five move funny. Of course it helped that most of them are very bright and don't twinkle. On a clear sky even Sirius often doesn't twinkle though.