I think the first step to considering technology is to figure out what it is supposed to represent. Since culture and religion are to be separate entities, I believe it would be the collective knowledge of a society or people. When looking at the code for the tech in the most recent release, I can see a simple structure that covers cost, requirements, and cost modifiers. I think this is a good base but would like to have optional OR blocks to say that you need either of several (combinations of) technologies or resources as flint and obsidian are equally good for flaking. I like the the tech is laid out into tiers, especially the idea of paleolithic -> neolithic idea. This coupled with a system of developing a feral people into nomads and then settling down gives a place where tech can fit in nicely with the progression of the world.
After doing a little research on what are known paleolithic inventions, I found is mostly about rudimentary and then advanced tools. Starting with fire, sticks, and stones then moving on to things like rafts and domesticated dogs. Add to this that we tend to classify prehistoric cultures based on tool use and you have a recipe for stone age technology being about constructing advanced tools. So say some base tech 'discovery' and use of fire would the trigger from moving from simple native population into a feral, or stone age people and start tech progression.
How does this fit into the idea of transforming a people into a actual society? Well, the bedrock of any civilization is easy and consistent access to food in a way to facilitate enough free time for something other than just subsistence. So stone age technology would be focused around extracting resources and building tools. These tools would allow populations to build more advanced tools and extract more exotic resources. Perhaps a feral society may start with the ability to hunt animals and gather plants for food. In order to extract bones they need to research bone crafting which lets them gather bones and use them as rudimentary tools. having rudimentary tools, like using a saber-tooth as a knife. Researching carving, which would require access to say bone or wood, would let you craft simple tools that are better and help extract more resources. More resources means more food; more food means more people; more people means more resources and the community grows.
Of course you do not manage the land; all you do is extract. As technology develops, population increase, more resources are extract and eventually you get to the point when a tile or province can no longer support a population, which can lead to two things: population crash and dispersal or collective migration and the formation of a nomadic people. Perhaps this unlocks neolithic technology as a people realize the need for sustainability through farming , animal husbandry, or other method.
Notice how becoming nomadic doesn't require any specific technology. I believe that would require a cultural or religious factor to keep the feral people from just spreading out in all directions towards every greener pasture. The technology factor is just about getting techniques to grow population and facilitate culture and religions forming. Overall, I believe technology should be about managing the natural world (province/tile interactions), culture should be about managing a social world (agent interactions), and religion about the spiritual world (magical interactions).
I also think it is key to have lots of variable paths to take. Nomads and tribes had varying uses of different technologies and one can craft similar tools from a variety of objects using different materials and techniques. Some races may be herbivores and not hunt for food and requiring them to research it. Similarly, a carnivore wouldn't necessarily care about plants and may take longer to develop wood working but bone craving would likely be developed due to the frequency of interacting with bones. Also clothing, an important tool for survivability , could be weaved from grasses or made from hides. This is my reason for wanting both AND and OR blocks for tech requirements. Hopefully, this system would both fit nicely into the already planned systems and allow some widely divergent civilizations developing based on the environment they evolved in.
But I feel that before any of this can be fleshed out in any detail, a working plant and animal system is needed. Then, the described system could be used to simulate the development of knowledge required to create conditions necessary for variety of cultural and political entities in a diverse, fun, and logical way by having technology represent the abilities of a people to recognize, harvest, and craft with materials from the natural world.