Metal is essential in our world but how did early humans noticed that that shiny “rock” is usefull
In: Other
ELI5: You’ve seen popcorn seeds right? Who would ever want to eat those yuck! But if you heat them up, they turn inside out and they they super yummy! If you heat something up you’re not “supposed” to it can have surprising and sometimes delicious results. Always ask your Mom or Dad if you want to heat something up first!
Non ELI5: Basically by accident. Just like 200 years ago humans really had no concept for “oil” being useful, it’d just be this gross stuff that was around. There were legit veins of copper ore on the surface of the earth. i.e. a mine with no digging. It was just “around”
So you’d be putting together rocks to make a nice fire pit, run the fire pit all night like you do, then in the process of going through the ash notice “hey, there’s this weird… shiny almost like dried blood, kinda stiff object”
Just inadvertently smelted some copper in the process of a normal fire.
Which would undoubtably been a novelty amongst cavemen. Then it turned into a quest to find/identify the types of rocks that would have more of the shiny stuff in it, then get the temperature right, then you can start smelting.
Someone messing around with it probably learned it kept a sharpened edge pretty well, and they started messing with creating molds using rock.
Now instead of all day crafting a stone/bone arrowhead… you could cast a bunch of copper ones that would be quicker and more durable.
Think of it like going to the store and you could buy a nice pint glass to drink beer for $15 or a 100 Solo plastic cups for the same price.
It’s kind of the same dynamics.
Latest Answers