1000 bc

[Silurian]

They could use it for fishing

 

[Hygro]

That's entirely their choice, as I said. If you give better domestic technology, you gave it to them in the hopes of a peaceful advancement. If they choose to use it for war, that is their choice. However, if you hand them a grenade and tell them how to make it, it's a direct invitation from you to throw that at their enemy because there is no other use for it.

And by not doing that you are giving their enemy a better chance at winning, so you pick sides either way.

I would definitely give better weapons to whatever society I came to. It would be out of self-preservation and buy me the time I needed to improve the society in social-technological ways.

 

[Souron]

If you give military technology, then you could improve an empire instead of a city-state.

 

[GoodGame]

Here is the situation. You are sent back 3000 years with only the knowledge in your head and fluency in the local language. You could be in China, India, Egypt, or the Ancient Near East.

Your mission is to technologically advance these people as much as you can. What sorts of things could you teach them?

For example, I would be able to teach them how to make a compass with lodestones and iron and mathematics up to calculus. What could you teach them?

Sustainable economics, sustainable agriculture, gunpowder, national armies (conscription), code of laws, music, and scientific method. Maybe throw in some metallurgy compatible with their local ores.
They should take-off on their own from there.

 

[Silurian]

People have been living for more than 40000 years just over 1km from me so can I go back further.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15540464