I’ve recently watched a video of Tom Scott on his second channel where he made (with the help of a blacksmith) make a bottle opener.
The guy first made Tom to blacksmith a punch or whatever then he mentioned that “Blacksmiths had to make their own tools” or something among the lines anyways.
So it struck me. How did people make their first tools? Are there any records? Or were people just banging rocks to the metal, made a primitive sledgehammer then used that further on?
How did they even came up with the idea that if you put metal in fire you can *remodel* it?
In: 46
> were people just banging rocks to the metal
Pretty much. We know that tribes in Michigan used stone tools to hammer and shape the plentiful native copper they had in the area into [tools and ornaments](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ad/Copper_knife%2C_spearpoints%2C_awls%2C_and_spud%2C_Late_Archaic_period%2C_Wisconsin%2C_3000_BC-1000_BC_-_Wisconsin_Historical_Museum_-_DSC03436.JPG). Iron and bronze tools could had been worked the same early on when metals were just starting to be used.
>How did they even came up with the idea that if you put metal in fire you can remodel it?
Some metals like tin can naturally occur as relatively pure *native* metal nuggets or pieces and have a low enough melting point that they can melt if accidentally placed or dropped into a wood campfire. Though this seems kind of farfetched to me.
For the majority of metals that humans worked with like copper, gold, and silver, it would had require a lot more heat to not only melt them, but to smelt their ores into metal. Copper ores like cuprite or malachite would had require at least 1200’C of heat to refine into metal form. You’re likely not going to reach such temperatures with a simple wood-burning bonfire.
The current thinking is that humans only were able to smelt and melt metals like copper or gold with the development of pottery kilns, which could reach these high temperatures and reductive conditions. Some potter might had been decorating unfired pots or ceramics by studding them with pretty mineral or native metal pieces, put them in the kiln, then come back to find out their malachite had turn into copper or native gold beads had melted off.
From there, it’s just a matter of a smart, curious potter being able to realize what happen and repeating the process on purpose.
Latest Answers