The tech tree of future games will have us smelt copper to unlock iron.
A 3K-year-old copper smelting site could be key to understanding origins of iron
11–20 of 91 posts
Re: A 3K-year-old copper smelting site could be key to understanding origins of iron
#12Earlier quoted context omitted.
nowhere in the article do they claim its the oldest iron... they just had a theory that copper processing lead to discoveries in iron processing. the evidence they found seems to support that. theyre not claiming this particular site is where the iron age started. and it has nothing to do with what some people in india did. Maybe they too discovered iron processing through a similar process. and i dont understand wha…
"they just had a theory that copper processing lead to discoveries in iron processing." Is there any theory how it could have been any different? It sounds obvious, that advances in metal working comes from those working with metals and not from carpet makers.
They found ancient inhabitants of Georgia using iron ore as flux for copper smelting, so it's a theory of how they went from one to the other. It's not terribly exciting but it beats "they tried smelting rocks at random to see if anything good would happen".
Re: A 3K-year-old copper smelting site could be key to understanding origins of iron
#13Earlier quoted context omitted.
nowhere in the article do they claim its the oldest iron... they just had a theory that copper processing lead to discoveries in iron processing. the evidence they found seems to support that. theyre not claiming this particular site is where the iron age started. and it has nothing to do with what some people in india did. Maybe they too discovered iron processing through a similar process. and i dont understand wha…
This discovery is only of interest because the Iron-Age, as per standard-theory, started around 1200 BC. in the Caucuses/Anatolia or the near-East - which fits with another theory which claims that this allowed the "Aryans" to invade India with their technological superiority around this same time and replace the (dark-skinned) natives genetically. (Note: the above is obviously a caricature, but current versions of t…
> This is all a digression from the main claims, so I'd prefer that people don't pull on this thread
You want to say your piece and get no back-chat?
Romans started to hit people with iron swords at a certain date, influencing the history of Europe substantially, so the origin of that iron age is interesting. Elsewhere, a copper smelting site of 500 BC would be interesting: consider the Moche, in Peru, who independently had a sort of bronze age around that time while Europe was into iron. (I don't think they did anything much with their bronze because they were too preoccupied with body fluids and erotic pottery.)
Re: A 3K-year-old copper smelting site could be key to understanding origins of iron
#14Watched a good video on "The Old Copper Culture", apparently they were using and working copper 9000 years ago, due to massive natural deposits of pure copper, something I never knew. (interesting geological reasons too) - worth a watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lf7cKSFCeag
Re: A 3K-year-old copper smelting site could be key to understanding origins of iron
#15The tech tree of future games will have us smelt copper to unlock iron.
RuneScape has it right the first time.
Re: A 3K-year-old copper smelting site could be key to understanding origins of iron
#16It's kinda romantic to think that innovation in those days likely came from the industrial sites. Maybe it was perfected later by an aristocrat, but it was more likely to be discovered by the ones who had ready access to smelters and were already using them all day every day.
Re: A 3K-year-old copper smelting site could be key to understanding origins of iron
#17It's kinda romantic to think that innovation in those days likely came from the industrial sites. Maybe it was perfected later by an aristocrat, but it was more likely to be discovered by the ones who had ready access to smelters and were already using them all day every day.
Also the economic situation it implies: industrial sites with specialists who were heavily engaged in one type of industry, such that they had the chance to notice and develop these sorts of innovations and discoveries.
Re: A 3K-year-old copper smelting site could be key to understanding origins of iron
#18Can anyone recommend a book (I'm imagining sort of 'coffee table' style picture book, but not necessarily) on technological advancements through human history, ideally roughly chronologically but more organised around what needed to happen before the next was possible?
Re: A 3K-year-old copper smelting site could be key to understanding origins of iron
#19It's kinda romantic to think that innovation in those days likely came from the industrial sites. Maybe it was perfected later by an aristocrat, but it was more likely to be discovered by the ones who had ready access to smelters and were already using them all day every day.
Also the economic situation it implies: industrial sites with specialists who were heavily engaged in one type of industry, such that they had the chance to notice and develop these sorts of innovations and discoveries.
Go into any restaurant kitchen. You can see in realtime how - half by pure superstition - humans can adopt totally unexplained, unscientific, but highly refined procedures and ingredients that enhance some particular effect in the thing they're working on. It just takes an archaeologist to find the science behind the cooking.
Re: A 3K-year-old copper smelting site could be key to understanding origins of iron
#20> Sparkly hematite mineral was used as a flux by copper smelters. Its distinctive appearance may have helped to attract attention from ancient miners and prospectors. Every once in a while I pull up some Wikipedia article with idle curiosity of "If I were transported back in time, could I usefully help this get invented?" One result of this is a helpless appreciation for how complicated it can be to even identify wha…
> Every once in a while I pull up some Wikipedia article with idle curiosity of "If I were transported back in time, could I usefully help this get invented?"
This reminds me of the book “How to invent everything” by Ryan North, to kind of see the fast-path for many inventions :)