The ability to fashion metal into tools and ornaments played a fundamental role in the development of human civilization. Here are a few of the breakthroughs that were made by ancient cultures.
•The first metals to be used by man were copper, gold and meteoric iron (iron that could be extracted from meteorites).
•The first tools were made of copper, which was being used by about 9000 BC.
•A copper pendant found in Iraq has been dated to 8700 BC.
•Stone Age man was as fascinated by gold and silver as we are today, and had learned to shape these metals into jewellery by 6600 BC.
•Copper was initially used in its native form. However, copper smelting was discovered independently in China and Europe in approximately 3500–3000 BC.
•Ötzi the Iceman (found in the European Alps), who died in about 3200 BC, had traces of arsenic in his hair and a high-grade copper axe, which suggests that he worked in copper smelting.
•Tin mining developed from 3000 BC onwards. The oldest tin-mining area that has been identified is Erzgebirge, on the border of Germany and the Czech Republic.
•The Bronze Age began in about 2300 BC, when people discovered the art of metallurgy (mixing two metals together to create a stronger one). Bronze is made by mixing copper and tin.
•By the third millennium BC, palaces in the Mesopotamian civilization displayed hundreds of kilograms of finely worked copper and gold, and they were also using bronze for weapons.
•Gold was being worked with precision in Peru in South America by 2000 BC, and in 1400–1000 BC craftsmen in the Olmec civilization were able to polish iron to the point where it could be used as a mirror.
•The ancient Egyptians of the same period used the old technique of fire-setting (heating rock with flames in order to be able to shatter it), as well as mines, to extract large quantities of gold.
•The art of metallurgy did not reach South America until the Middle Ages, but once it did, the Aztec, Inca and Mayan civilizations developed highly sophisticated ways to use alloys and gilding techniques.
•The ancient Greeks were the first to use bronze casting.
•While cast iron and wrought iron had been in use for millennia, the Iron Age, which started in about 1200–800 BC, was characterized by large-scale production of steel, a reinforced form of iron.
•A technique for making steel was discovered independently in the Tanzania region 2,000 years ago. The Hayan people used open-air furnaces of mud and grass to provide the carbon that is needed to transform iron into steel.