How did mankind discover metal?
In: Technology
Some metal is just sitting there on the surface of the Earth. Some copper and gold can be pretty close to the pure metal, but it’s usually mixed in with rock to form an ore. Even so, this ore is still obviously different from other stones and dirt. It’s the type of thing you’d notice when your livelihood depends on stone tools. It’s not clear how or why people first started to put metals and ores in fire, but it could have been related to cooking or other methods of tool-making. Either way, once you do that, you’re smelting, and the resulting product can be molded or hammered into useful shapes.
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