1) Helmut Wilsdorf, in KULTURGESCHICHTE DES BERGBAUS (Essen: Verlag
Glueckauf 1987) said: "According to today's knowledge, man occupied himself
with metallic materials since about 9000 years. Before that, man concerned
himself some ten thousand years with the suitability of [specific] types
of stone [or rock] to make tools, and he [often] used [what could today be
called] mining. But there exists neither a broadly based history of mining
nor an in-depth cultural history of mining (montangeschichtliche
Kulturgeschich-te)" (curious how the Germans often say the same thing twice
but with different words).
>From his Table of Contents and the text it follows that the inhabitants of
Sumer, Babylon and Ninive were the first to use metals--but what did he know
and how much has been discovered since 1985 (when Wilsdorf presumably ended
his research)? He is dead now.
You may also look up John Dayton MINERALS AND METALS, GLAZING AND MAN,
(London: Harrap, 1978), full of details, full of interesting speculations,
and very informative, but heavy (in weight) and heavy (in content).
2) But use logic: man walked on earth and saw bright rocks. he picked them
up. Some were gold, and easily workable, others were pure copper, pure
galena (lead ore); some man could hammer (like gold, but even hammered gold
was useless as a tool). But copper (which by hammering became harder, was
very useful for tools and weapons. And so man shaped tools. But tools or
pure copper though hardened by hammering were still too soft. It was only
after man was able to make bronze, by (probably at the beginning
accidentally) adding tin ore or arsenic ore or others to copper in primitive
smelting attempts that man discovered bronze and then was able to make hard
tools and weapons. Then came iron, and so forth.
A. J. Wilson in THE LIVING ROCK (Cambridge: Woodhead,1994) said "The History
of metals is the history of civilization."
You may wish to make a list of what metals are used in building a home or in
a kitchen or in a car or in all kinds of factories, to show that indeed
without metals ....
And that really says it all: there could be no civilization the way we know
it without metals.
Anything else?
Good luck. Good wishes
Helmut Waszkis
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