How ancient people first used Metals

How ancient people first used Metals

How did metallurgy begin?

There is a theory to how this began and it is called the Campfire theory, this theory states that ores were accidentally used to build stone enclosures around cooking fires, and that people noticed new metals appearing from the ashes. It also says that this would be fine to smelt mercury and lead but would not work for copper or iron as the temperatures around a fire are not high enough. However the most likely setting to discover smelting was when using pottery kilns, where mineral pigments used in colouring and glazing pottery would occasionally have been chemically reduced to pure metal.

Iron in ancient times:

The first smelting of iron took place around about 1500bc, but was only available to the ancients through meteorites that fell to earth. Iron-making itself didn't become an everyday process until 1500bc when hematite, an oxide of iron was used by the ancients to make beads and ornaments. Wrought iron is the first iron known to man. The product of reaction was a spongy mass of iron intermixed with slag. This was then reheated and hammered to expel the slag and then forged into the desired shape. The use of iron weapons revolutionized warfare when it became cheaper to produce as before iron was more expensive than gold.

Copper in ancient times:

The first smelting of copper took place in 4200bc, and was used to create the first tools, implements and weapons. By 3600 BC the first copper smelted artifacts were found in the Nile valley and copper rings, bracelets, chisels were found. By 3000 BC weapons, tools etc. were widely found. Tools and weapons of utilitarian value were now within society, however, only kings and royalty had such tools; it would take another 500 years before they reached the peasants.

Sources:

http://neon.mems.cmu.edu/cramb/Processing/history.html

http://www.uwgb.edu/dutchs/westtech/xancient.htm

Sam Long