how did early humans create the first metal tools without metal tools to make them?

Question

If early humans crafted a hammer or an axe from metal for example. How on earth did they craft the first tool that was used to create that hammer or axe. I know you can create a hammer from natural material like stone and an axe from a sharp piece of stone but how did they forge the first metal tools and even weapons?

In: 393

Answer 1

Well first you put clay in a fire. Notice that the clay got hard after the fire was out.

Then someone starts making pots out of clay because tempered clay won’t dissolve in water and is much more malleable when it’s wet clay than wood.

Then someone realizes that making a furnace out of clay will make the tempering process much more efficient costing less wood to make more pots.

Then someone notices that the pots get even better if you first make charcoal out of the wood because the temperature can get even higher.

Then someone puts red clay in the super hot furnace that gets so hot that the rust literally turns back into iron. When they are done they notice these small hard pebbles.

Someone decides to collect a bunch of hard metal pebbles and put them all in a furnace. Those pebbles melt together and become a tiny ingot.

Then someone notices these ingots are malleable when super hot. They work on getting the temperature hot enough that the ingot glow and then starts shaping them.

Eventually, someone shapes it into an axe and that’s how you get an axe.

This is way simplified and in reality, the bronze age came before the iron age but it’s how it could have happened I think. (I’m no metallurgist or historian so I’m not qualified to actually answer this question).