Scientists built their own Stone Age tools to figure out how they were used(arstechnica.com)
arstechnica.com
Scientists built their own Stone Age tools to figure out how they were used
https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/03/these-scientists-built-their-own-stone-age-tools-to-figure-out-how-they-were-used/
90 comments
The primitive technology YouTube channel is pretty much this.
He doesn't use any equipment, materials or tools he hasn't made himself from the earth.
And, after many years of effort, he has managed to make some (not great quality) iron. He has also made bricks, pottery, a fan and buildings.
He doesn't use any equipment, materials or tools he hasn't made himself from the earth.
And, after many years of effort, he has managed to make some (not great quality) iron. He has also made bricks, pottery, a fan and buildings.
Do we get lots of servants?
As soon as somebody volunteers to serve this way. Of course there can be a hierarchy of a sort and specialization like in any other institute. Some do more science, some do more chores, depending on what they can and feel like doing.
Obligatory link to Primitive Technology on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@primitivetechnology9550
Although, he doesn't recreate past technology - I think he researches what technology could have existed, given the knowledge of our time. Things like his blowers, and his iron smelting processes.
Of course, there's only so much you can do with rocks & sticks, so most of what he makes ends up being pretty similar to historical tools & buildings.
Although, he doesn't recreate past technology - I think he researches what technology could have existed, given the knowledge of our time. Things like his blowers, and his iron smelting processes.
Of course, there's only so much you can do with rocks & sticks, so most of what he makes ends up being pretty similar to historical tools & buildings.
If you watch any of his videos, I recommend turning on captions. He uses them to explain what he's doing, and why.
There was one fellow who smelted copper ore and tin ore, made copper wire and a vinegar battery, and made a working telegraph that could have been built any time since 3000 BC.
To make use of telegraphy, one would need to know how to read & write. The most useful inventions in history:
1. reading & writing
2. paper
3. printing press
4. computers & networking
Note that they're all about preserving and sharing information.
1. reading & writing
2. paper
3. printing press
4. computers & networking
Note that they're all about preserving and sharing information.
Weird how that list doesn't include the state, coinage, or farming. Or animal domestication. Or smelting iron. Or steam engines and machine tools.
Computers are basically irrelevant but networking would be huge - being able to communicate near-instantly across large distances was possibly the single biggest limiting factor for the size of empires in agrarian societies (other than food).
Computers are basically irrelevant but networking would be huge - being able to communicate near-instantly across large distances was possibly the single biggest limiting factor for the size of empires in agrarian societies (other than food).
I'd argue the long term fixed preservation of knowledge outdoes almost every other invention.
The value of being able to have a book you distribute which describes how to do all those other things, is immense.
The value of being able to have a book you distribute which describes how to do all those other things, is immense.
Writing doesn't do as much as you'd think for long-term fixed preservation of knowledge. It sure helps, but 1) oral teachings exist and useful practices are passed down whether or not they're written, and 2) at the end of the day books need to be constantly rewritten as they wear out, and ancient libraries burned down all the time.
In terms of building a civilisation in the first place, animal husbandry is vastly more useful than writing because writing is something scribes do (i.e. your non-farming elite - in medieval times, more than 9/10 of the population were farmers, and prehistorical farming was likely far less efficient than medieval farming what with the lack of iron etc), and animal husbandry improves your agriculture dramatically and are a major factor in providing the food-surplus for those scribes to exist in the first place.
In fact, particularly food-poor empires tend to be conquered by more food-rich empires that can field larger armies, so if your hypothetical has-writing empire fought my hypothetical has-animals empire then I expect mine would win. Especially since your army wouldn't have cavalry or charioteers.
In terms of building a civilisation in the first place, animal husbandry is vastly more useful than writing because writing is something scribes do (i.e. your non-farming elite - in medieval times, more than 9/10 of the population were farmers, and prehistorical farming was likely far less efficient than medieval farming what with the lack of iron etc), and animal husbandry improves your agriculture dramatically and are a major factor in providing the food-surplus for those scribes to exist in the first place.
In fact, particularly food-poor empires tend to be conquered by more food-rich empires that can field larger armies, so if your hypothetical has-writing empire fought my hypothetical has-animals empire then I expect mine would win. Especially since your army wouldn't have cavalry or charioteers.
>being able to communicate near-instantly across large distances was possibly the single biggest limiting factor for the size of empires in agrarian societies
Seemingly, yes, but this hasn't been proven quite yet. The American empire appears to be losing dominance since the proliferation of the internet, for example. However, the American empire certainly gained tremendous power from broadcasted electronic mediums.
Seemingly, yes, but this hasn't been proven quite yet. The American empire appears to be losing dominance since the proliferation of the internet, for example. However, the American empire certainly gained tremendous power from broadcasted electronic mediums.
This would only be relevant if the American empire were losing dominance to rivals that didn’t also have computing and networking etc.
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I would argue that convincingly unfaked communication is more important than fast communication.
America gained cultural power over the world by making most of the worlds films. But if those films took a year to arrive in Turkmenistan, it wouldn't diminish the power of that culture over the people.
However, if rather than a film arriving, it was a guy on horseback who had heard legend of someone who had once seen an American film, then it would probably have little impact.
America gained cultural power over the world by making most of the worlds films. But if those films took a year to arrive in Turkmenistan, it wouldn't diminish the power of that culture over the people.
However, if rather than a film arriving, it was a guy on horseback who had heard legend of someone who had once seen an American film, then it would probably have little impact.
The emergence of the state probably could not have happened without writing. Steam engines and machine tools could not have happened without the printing press. Networking (telegraph) was the predecessor technology of computers.
>The emergence of the state probably could not have happened without writing.
Empirically speaking the opposite is more likely - writing emerged from state accountants keeping records of grain etc. Writing was independently invented by several states across the globe, in fact.
>Steam engines and machine tools could not have happened without the printing press.
Why's that?
This is a very hard subject to discuss, because steam engines and the industrial revolution (I mean precisely the shift from an agrarian economy to a mineral economy, i.e. the switch to using non-living energy sources) happened exactly once, in the UK, and spread worldwide from there. It's hard to extrapolate from a dataset of one.
However, from what I understand of the industrial revolution, it didn't strictly require the printing press - the core driver was of needing to extract coal from a deep coal mine that was flooded; because the coal mine produced a bunch of low-grade coal that was disposed of onsite by burning it (because it was too crappy to be worth the transport costs of selling it) the efficiency of the steam engine didn't matter because the fuel was free.
There were a bunch of implicit requirements (the obvious one being the demand for coal) that are extensively debated, and while we could speculate the printing press was helpful in some way, I don't see any reason why a printing press would be a hard-requirement.
>Networking (telegraph) was the predecessor technology of computers.
The Antikythera mechanism predates the telegraph by millennia. Computing was orthogonal to networking for the majority of its history.
Empirically speaking the opposite is more likely - writing emerged from state accountants keeping records of grain etc. Writing was independently invented by several states across the globe, in fact.
>Steam engines and machine tools could not have happened without the printing press.
Why's that?
This is a very hard subject to discuss, because steam engines and the industrial revolution (I mean precisely the shift from an agrarian economy to a mineral economy, i.e. the switch to using non-living energy sources) happened exactly once, in the UK, and spread worldwide from there. It's hard to extrapolate from a dataset of one.
However, from what I understand of the industrial revolution, it didn't strictly require the printing press - the core driver was of needing to extract coal from a deep coal mine that was flooded; because the coal mine produced a bunch of low-grade coal that was disposed of onsite by burning it (because it was too crappy to be worth the transport costs of selling it) the efficiency of the steam engine didn't matter because the fuel was free.
There were a bunch of implicit requirements (the obvious one being the demand for coal) that are extensively debated, and while we could speculate the printing press was helpful in some way, I don't see any reason why a printing press would be a hard-requirement.
>Networking (telegraph) was the predecessor technology of computers.
The Antikythera mechanism predates the telegraph by millennia. Computing was orthogonal to networking for the majority of its history.
Now I wonder whether a rhythm-based writing system could have been developed ahead of pictographic and alphabetic writing if preliterate people had had a telegraph. They might have started off developing rhythm conventions based on particular songs, or something.
I guess signal drums predate writing in many places and successfully use rhythm to convey information over long distances. I'm not sure whether any that don't encode writing have a writing-like ability to represent arbitrary messages rather than just prearranged ones.
I guess signal drums predate writing in many places and successfully use rhythm to convey information over long distances. I'm not sure whether any that don't encode writing have a writing-like ability to represent arbitrary messages rather than just prearranged ones.
We have always had musical notation, though what we have today is much more complex than any surviving records from clay tablets and such of ancient times.
The idea of communicating sounds via physical marks was there, but it clearly lost out- why bother writing a message that needs to be sounded out, then translated to a spoken language, when you can skip the translation step with something glottographic?
The idea of communicating sounds via physical marks was there, but it clearly lost out- why bother writing a message that needs to be sounded out, then translated to a spoken language, when you can skip the translation step with something glottographic?
[deleted]
Related, The Information is an excellent book: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Information:_A_History,_a_...
agriculture
you would not be able to build computers if you did not have advanced math concepts in the first place and a bunch of engineering knowhow as well.
Yeah, those fire, pots and crops where so useless compared to those. And the wheel? Na, it's not that important.
Those items could very well have been invented multiple times, because the how-to information was lost again and again.
You are overestimating.
Even if there was a working phone network and phones when we were hunter gatherers, this wouldn't allow us to grow cities.
All inventions work off each other, but if we count them without prerequisites:
Agriculture (farming / animal domestication etc), ie being able to quite reliably produce a lot of food, is the most important innovation and invention for humanity.
Next, still not information but the industrial revolution and engines and mass scale production. Without this we would depend on humans and animals to do the work, and I for one do not like the idea of a modern slave industry, but even beyond that we couldn't use economies of scale, which actually allows for absolutely bonkers progress.
Then perhaps writing and reading, and networking.
Even if there was a working phone network and phones when we were hunter gatherers, this wouldn't allow us to grow cities.
All inventions work off each other, but if we count them without prerequisites:
Agriculture (farming / animal domestication etc), ie being able to quite reliably produce a lot of food, is the most important innovation and invention for humanity.
Next, still not information but the industrial revolution and engines and mass scale production. Without this we would depend on humans and animals to do the work, and I for one do not like the idea of a modern slave industry, but even beyond that we couldn't use economies of scale, which actually allows for absolutely bonkers progress.
Then perhaps writing and reading, and networking.
> the industrial revolution and engines and mass scale production
This was enabled by the printing press. Immediately prior to the industrial revolution, printers printed how-to manuals on every topic they could think of.
It's not a surprise that the industrial revolution occurred in the area that invented and widely adopted printing presses.
This was enabled by the printing press. Immediately prior to the industrial revolution, printers printed how-to manuals on every topic they could think of.
It's not a surprise that the industrial revolution occurred in the area that invented and widely adopted printing presses.
Why 3000 BC?
Isn't it true that if we applied today's knowledge it could also be built millions of years ago?
I can understand it means something like: it could be built with tools and materials they had 3000 BC, but isn't it also true that knowledge was able to create different tools and different materials?
Isn't it true that if we applied today's knowledge it could also be built millions of years ago?
I can understand it means something like: it could be built with tools and materials they had 3000 BC, but isn't it also true that knowledge was able to create different tools and different materials?
I think the parent meant that it could be built by 'modern' people, homo sapiens sapiens, with the same intelligence as people living today
Homo sapiens "with the same intelligence as people living today" existed for at least 160,000 years, possibly 300,000...
Some even go as far as argue that invention of agriculture actually made us dumber, because we did not have to fight for our survival as much as before.
Some even go as far as argue that invention of agriculture actually made us dumber, because we did not have to fight for our survival as much as before.
Do you have a link I can read? I’m having trouble finding mentions of this
Jamie O'Shea's Immaculate Telegraphy video series (2009) - "It's the ultimate salvagepunk experiment" --
https://www.tumblr.com/immaculatetelegraphy -- https://www.google.com/search?q=immaculate+telegraphy
But also Lewis Dartnell (The Knowledge: How to Rebuild our World from Scratch) https://www.wired.com/story/how-to-make-a-telegraph-from-scr... -- https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Knowledge:_How_to_Rebuil... -- "a great read, even if civilization does not collapse"
But also Lewis Dartnell (The Knowledge: How to Rebuild our World from Scratch) https://www.wired.com/story/how-to-make-a-telegraph-from-scr... -- https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Knowledge:_How_to_Rebuil... -- "a great read, even if civilization does not collapse"
This channel is so, so important, I can't say enough.
Selections of this channel's content should be included in children's school curricula.
Selections of this channel's content should be included in children's school curricula.
It’s crazy to think that fully one 800th of the world is subscribed to this channel. And that’s only the shbscribers, not the number of people that have actually seen these videos.
also one of the very few big channels on Youtube not filled with sponsored content.
I’ve found myself infected with a desire to have a machine shop. I don’t exactly know what I’d use it for, but there’s something so cool about making your own stuff.
This fellow inherited his grandfather’s machine shop https://youtu.be/hearLttbrLo?si=r2CHxdepmhQ71xJq and used it to make… a pen. https://youtu.be/j27RKTHMLkA?si=f5OPN7ZJ10EBSZa4 And it’s an addiction I didn’t know I had.
The gateway drug that led to all of this was a video about a $200 CNC mill https://youtu.be/K9pjduKSsKs?si=mOJGCF9X6_s7d-J9 which led to a tour of his machine shop https://youtu.be/bHnfvtYHn7k?si=w65ZPfYm_5xpdkcD and a video about making a library. For his apartment. With a ladder that rolls along the shelves. https://youtu.be/DPRQaPVuRxU?si=uyR5xMDWgrYzHqlp
I’ve been making things for… I probably shouldn’t have calculated it, but it turns out to be 23 years now. They’ve all been digital. Somehow it never occurred to me that you can just make things yourself rather than buy it from Amazon. It sounds stupid to write it out like that, but it’s an easy thing to overlook, because you can go your whole life without thinking about it.
There’s also no limit to the stuff you can cobble together. Here’s someone whose channel averages about 30 views per video, who made a vacuum pump out of a refrigerator compressor. https://youtu.be/4Zg0EXvyD-4?si=f6oB8ScuhDd64T6n (His channel also has hundreds of videos with dozens of projects, including making his own friggin’ laser CNC machine from scratch via arduino and time. https://youtu.be/0z-zXQ2INp4?si=Y0Ao6dwr1YpQVqU7 I have no idea how no one has noticed him yet.)
All of this culminated into an intersection of everything I’ve been interested in recently: 3D resin-printed molds for plastic injection molding. https://youtu.be/wMRSPXt48CI?si=5IeQnSi89byrr0Il You can make practically anything you can think of, and they don’t feel cheap. Not to punch down on normal 3D printers; some people love them, but a larger contingent dismiss most of what they can make as cheap toys. They’re not wrong.
It’s interesting tracing a line from the Stone Age tools to these. The people back then were smart and industrious. If you gave them a lathe, I wonder what they would have made.
This fellow inherited his grandfather’s machine shop https://youtu.be/hearLttbrLo?si=r2CHxdepmhQ71xJq and used it to make… a pen. https://youtu.be/j27RKTHMLkA?si=f5OPN7ZJ10EBSZa4 And it’s an addiction I didn’t know I had.
The gateway drug that led to all of this was a video about a $200 CNC mill https://youtu.be/K9pjduKSsKs?si=mOJGCF9X6_s7d-J9 which led to a tour of his machine shop https://youtu.be/bHnfvtYHn7k?si=w65ZPfYm_5xpdkcD and a video about making a library. For his apartment. With a ladder that rolls along the shelves. https://youtu.be/DPRQaPVuRxU?si=uyR5xMDWgrYzHqlp
I’ve been making things for… I probably shouldn’t have calculated it, but it turns out to be 23 years now. They’ve all been digital. Somehow it never occurred to me that you can just make things yourself rather than buy it from Amazon. It sounds stupid to write it out like that, but it’s an easy thing to overlook, because you can go your whole life without thinking about it.
There’s also no limit to the stuff you can cobble together. Here’s someone whose channel averages about 30 views per video, who made a vacuum pump out of a refrigerator compressor. https://youtu.be/4Zg0EXvyD-4?si=f6oB8ScuhDd64T6n (His channel also has hundreds of videos with dozens of projects, including making his own friggin’ laser CNC machine from scratch via arduino and time. https://youtu.be/0z-zXQ2INp4?si=Y0Ao6dwr1YpQVqU7 I have no idea how no one has noticed him yet.)
All of this culminated into an intersection of everything I’ve been interested in recently: 3D resin-printed molds for plastic injection molding. https://youtu.be/wMRSPXt48CI?si=5IeQnSi89byrr0Il You can make practically anything you can think of, and they don’t feel cheap. Not to punch down on normal 3D printers; some people love them, but a larger contingent dismiss most of what they can make as cheap toys. They’re not wrong.
It’s interesting tracing a line from the Stone Age tools to these. The people back then were smart and industrious. If you gave them a lathe, I wonder what they would have made.
If you really want to start from the beginning, get “Build Your Own Metal Working Shop From Scrap” by David Gingery.
Quoting the description from Amazon (link below)…
“[It] is a progressive series of seven projects. Beginning with a simple charcoal fired foundry, you produce the castings for building the machine tools to equip your shop. Initially the castings are finished by simple hand methods, but it is not long before the developing machines are doing much of the work to produce their own parts.”
https://a.co/d/cIqbQCD
Quoting the description from Amazon (link below)…
“[It] is a progressive series of seven projects. Beginning with a simple charcoal fired foundry, you produce the castings for building the machine tools to equip your shop. Initially the castings are finished by simple hand methods, but it is not long before the developing machines are doing much of the work to produce their own parts.”
https://a.co/d/cIqbQCD
That’s what Harbor Freight is great for if you’re in the States. They have little milling machines and lots of cheap tools that work well for one-off stuff, at least.
Was lucky to take an engineering machining class in college and got to use a lathe and mill, am more of a welder now. The definition of a “tool” is pretty loose but lots of small things can be made with just a cheap stick welder and grinder.
Cheers
Was lucky to take an engineering machining class in college and got to use a lathe and mill, am more of a welder now. The definition of a “tool” is pretty loose but lots of small things can be made with just a cheap stick welder and grinder.
Cheers
Hey, great idea! Thank you!
If you gave them a lathe, I wonder what they would have made.
That confused me because in Spanish, the same word is used for a potter's wheel. Anyway that would be more recent too. But I think that there's a long prehistoric period, between stone tools and stone buildings, that we know very little because they used wood, more than anything else.
I have a lot of respect for our far ancestors thanks to this guy:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miguel_de_la_Quadra-Salcedo
He made some awesome documentaries in the 70's showing stone age tribes in the Amazonia and their incredible techniques to make a blowgun, arrows or a hut.
It seems there's much interest here for CNC, did you see this post?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39141816
That confused me because in Spanish, the same word is used for a potter's wheel. Anyway that would be more recent too. But I think that there's a long prehistoric period, between stone tools and stone buildings, that we know very little because they used wood, more than anything else.
I have a lot of respect for our far ancestors thanks to this guy:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miguel_de_la_Quadra-Salcedo
He made some awesome documentaries in the 70's showing stone age tribes in the Amazonia and their incredible techniques to make a blowgun, arrows or a hut.
It seems there's much interest here for CNC, did you see this post?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39141816
Tools are quite exciting.
You start by acquiring of basic hand operated ones, then there is a whole set of tools for construction that you can probably use for garden furniture carpentry, then come the tools that you can use to create furniture proper.
I believe material wise it is a similar journey. From soft construction wood to hardwoods, that require different tools and techniques...
Metal processing is a challenge of it's own. One set of tolling while you do aluminium grade of metals and then tooling becomes more or less cost prohibitive.
Consider the workshop space. It is a lot of tools for this journey...
It is sort of same as software development. You do spend a lot of time to prepare infrastructure to craft repeatable parts that will stick together and align on a certain angle, etc.
The feeling when it works is magical. Fighting your tool to get things done (it is time for upgrade :)) is dreadful...
You start by acquiring of basic hand operated ones, then there is a whole set of tools for construction that you can probably use for garden furniture carpentry, then come the tools that you can use to create furniture proper.
I believe material wise it is a similar journey. From soft construction wood to hardwoods, that require different tools and techniques...
Metal processing is a challenge of it's own. One set of tolling while you do aluminium grade of metals and then tooling becomes more or less cost prohibitive.
Consider the workshop space. It is a lot of tools for this journey...
It is sort of same as software development. You do spend a lot of time to prepare infrastructure to craft repeatable parts that will stick together and align on a certain angle, etc.
The feeling when it works is magical. Fighting your tool to get things done (it is time for upgrade :)) is dreadful...
I remember an old Amateur Scientist article from Scientific American way back which showed how to build a gas liquifier with a refrigerator compressor. I tried to build a couple of the AS projects, but my fab skills as a kid were sorely lacking.
You might also enjoy watching "How to Make Everything" and "Blondiehacks"
Edit: Clickspring is fantastic too, his Antikythera mechanism project is just phenomenal.
Edit: Clickspring is fantastic too, his Antikythera mechanism project is just phenomenal.
I’m on the same boat, currently working on making my own multi tools. I reckon it can be a rabbit hole as I see all that’s involved in knife making and blacksmithing.
I think there's really a modern disconnect for a lot of people (myself included, a lot of the time) between needing/wanting "a thing" and the idea that you don't always need to buy that thing as a product from someone else. That creating, modifying, or even repairing something yourself to serve whatever purpose is really not that far out of an idea. My partner and I have been infected by the same desire and have been starting to acquire various tools and machines over the years, and even now I find myself still defaulting to searching for something on amazon when I run into a problem/"a thing" that I want without even considering if I could DIY it myself. Obviously its not always better or even cheaper to DIY something, especially considering tool and material accessibility and cost, but I think at large a lot of folks don't even consider it an option. It is one of those things that when you first realize you don't _have_ to buy the thing off of amazon, it feels incredibly obvious and that you should've known that from the start, but I really thing it is a somewhat uncommon idea nowadays. (There's probably a conversation you could have about the millions of reasons why that's the case re: modern consumerism, less emphasis on "blue collar" skills and the general perspective that they're "lesser" skills/pathways than their "white collar" counterparts, etc. But that's a whole nother topic :) )
I do think there's some resurgence here with a lot of the modern "maker" movement, which is awesome! But at least in the content bubble I live in, it seems there's still _a bit_ of a disconnect between the newer, more digital "3D Printing, Code, Electronics etc." spaces and the more analog "Wood, Metal, Paint, Clay, etc." spaces. (I think this gap is slowly closing, though!)
Re: Injection molding, you might be interested in a few videos from Evan Monsma's youtube channel [1] where he makes an incredibly cheap injection molding machine out of a drill press[2], and explores super inexpensive mold making materials like steel epoxy putty[3] (also highly recommend checking his channel out in general, it's recently been becoming one of my favorite smaller channels!) [1] https://www.youtube.com/c/EvanMonsma [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kovD-FPOVlo [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwbxNOAg3Pc
Happy Making!
I do think there's some resurgence here with a lot of the modern "maker" movement, which is awesome! But at least in the content bubble I live in, it seems there's still _a bit_ of a disconnect between the newer, more digital "3D Printing, Code, Electronics etc." spaces and the more analog "Wood, Metal, Paint, Clay, etc." spaces. (I think this gap is slowly closing, though!)
Re: Injection molding, you might be interested in a few videos from Evan Monsma's youtube channel [1] where he makes an incredibly cheap injection molding machine out of a drill press[2], and explores super inexpensive mold making materials like steel epoxy putty[3] (also highly recommend checking his channel out in general, it's recently been becoming one of my favorite smaller channels!) [1] https://www.youtube.com/c/EvanMonsma [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kovD-FPOVlo [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwbxNOAg3Pc
Happy Making!
> who made a vacuum pump out of a refrigerator compressor
Lex Luthor made an atomic pile out of a sand pile.
Lex Luthor made an atomic pile out of a sand pile.
Every pile can be an atomic pile if you're really, really, REALLY patient
I'm off topic, but can you imagine that in the future there could be an electronic device and through advanced studies on material, atoms and quantum, they could recreate all the information that said device once had? I imagine they could study the Internet of the past even if the backups were lost.
If an archeologist from the far future finds these, they'll be utterly confused
The archaeologist Leonard Woolley discovered a room in the Ur temple complex containing items which were far older than the ~530 BCE expected. They were organized and labeled in three different languages, leading Woolley to conclude they were an archeological museum now referred to as Ennigaldi-Nanna's museum. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ennigaldi-Nanna%27s_museum
They’ll just a have a big discussion on whether the big war actually happened in 2020 or 2050.
I don't think so, for the future it would be easy to recreate what the situation was, I could determine that they are tools recreated by scientists from the past.
Who first decided to melt the rocks and get the iron?
The moment men learned to make fire, be sure there was some guy there that put everything to the fire to see what happened.
How do I know? I would have been that guy.
How do I know? I would have been that guy.
I recently had to “fix” my company-appointed laptop by opening it up and re-seating the battery. A co-worker made a comment: you’re not a software engineer, you’re a computer engineer. To which I replied: nah, I was just a kid who really liked taking things apart so I could learn how they worked.
We seem to have something in common!
Somebody watching lava flows, slag, and wondering if they can recreate that heat.
Metal work also started with softer easier to melt metals from much purer near surface veins and worked outwards toward harder less pure more deeply buried metals.
Metal work also started with softer easier to melt metals from much purer near surface veins and worked outwards toward harder less pure more deeply buried metals.
I think metal work started with gold. It naturally occurs in a 'ready for use' form of nuggets. You don't need to melt anything and nuggets are very soft and easy to form into any desirable shape. Most likely it's initial use was the jewelry because shiny!
Significant metal working and mining appears to have started at least 7,000 BCE with copper and lead - both (once) appear in surface | near surface deposits that can be chased back and are relatively easy to smash out and cold work when (near) 'pure'.
Ready to work gold nuggets are what they are and are rarer to find.
Metal work evolved with mining, chasing surface veins back, and this started in a significant way for first lead|copper, then tin, then other metals.
There's a recognised pre Bronze "Copper Age", then Bronze, then Iron.
Gold is shiny, beyond that it has a limited utility until the age of electronics; it's a bit soft for weapons or armour, a bit rare for sealing pipes, a bit non reactive for easy chemisty^H Alchemy, etc.
Lot's of fun for decorations.
Ready to work gold nuggets are what they are and are rarer to find.
Metal work evolved with mining, chasing surface veins back, and this started in a significant way for first lead|copper, then tin, then other metals.
There's a recognised pre Bronze "Copper Age", then Bronze, then Iron.
Gold is shiny, beyond that it has a limited utility until the age of electronics; it's a bit soft for weapons or armour, a bit rare for sealing pipes, a bit non reactive for easy chemisty^H Alchemy, etc.
Lot's of fun for decorations.
The temperature required to melt iron ore is quite a bit more than anything you can get out of a conventional fire.
This is why people char coal and make bloomery furnaces from clay | mud | etc.
Yeah, but this is all firmly in the realm of "engineering", and not "throw stuff into the fire for the lols".
Sure; 4,500 year old "engineering" that evolved from playing around with fire and melting more and more things with higher and higher melting points.
Who, aside from yourself, actually mentioned "throw stuff into the fire for the lols". ?
Who, aside from yourself, actually mentioned "throw stuff into the fire for the lols". ?
> The moment men learned to make fire, be sure there was some guy there that put everything to the fire to see what happened.
Nitpick: Bloomeries generally don't melt iron. They are just hot enough to reduce iron oxide to iron. Melting iron is a relatively young technology. From Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloomery):
"Inside the furnace, carbon monoxide from the incomplete combustion of the charcoal reduces the iron oxides in the ore to metallic iron without melting the ore; this allows the bloomery to operate at lower temperatures than the melting temperature of the ore."
and
"As a bloomery's size is increased, the iron ore is exposed to burning charcoal for a longer time. When combined with the strong air blast required to penetrate the large ore and charcoal stack, this may cause part of the iron to melt and become saturated with carbon in the process, producing unforgeable pig iron, which requires oxidation to be reduced into cast iron, steel, and iron. This pig iron was considered a waste product detracting from the largest bloomeries' yield, and early blast furnaces, identical in construction, but dedicated to the production of molten iron, were not built until the 14th century."
"Inside the furnace, carbon monoxide from the incomplete combustion of the charcoal reduces the iron oxides in the ore to metallic iron without melting the ore; this allows the bloomery to operate at lower temperatures than the melting temperature of the ore."
and
"As a bloomery's size is increased, the iron ore is exposed to burning charcoal for a longer time. When combined with the strong air blast required to penetrate the large ore and charcoal stack, this may cause part of the iron to melt and become saturated with carbon in the process, producing unforgeable pig iron, which requires oxidation to be reduced into cast iron, steel, and iron. This pig iron was considered a waste product detracting from the largest bloomeries' yield, and early blast furnaces, identical in construction, but dedicated to the production of molten iron, were not built until the 14th century."
It's a fair point but pragmatically a nitpick indeed - for a full four thousand years people have worked iron into tools without melting it through the wonder of a chemical reaction that sidesteps the issue.
While we're here I guess we should also point out that glass blowing furnaces don't melt silicon, they dissolve it into a flux of other stuff to make a gooey glob we call molten glass.
The original question posed was "who first decided to melt the rocks and get the iron" .. technically the rock was smelted not melted in order to remove the rock and get the iron.
The first quibble was that iron isn't melted out, my response was that a bloomery is used instead, my bad for not clarifying that they are used to smelt and not melt.
While we're here I guess we should also point out that glass blowing furnaces don't melt silicon, they dissolve it into a flux of other stuff to make a gooey glob we call molten glass.
The original question posed was "who first decided to melt the rocks and get the iron" .. technically the rock was smelted not melted in order to remove the rock and get the iron.
The first quibble was that iron isn't melted out, my response was that a bloomery is used instead, my bad for not clarifying that they are used to smelt and not melt.
I just wanted to make sure that it's clear for everybody. People seem to think that melting iron is easy. All the time I see smiths in movies and TV shows running around with molten iron in a medieval setting and even casting swords. It drives me nuts.
Reminded of the 2013 Ignoble award[0] where someone ate a shrew to determine what remains would be available for study.
ARCHAEOLOGY PRIZE: Brian Crandall [USA] and Peter Stahl [CANADA, USA], for parboiling a dead shrew, and then swallowing the shrew without chewing, and then carefully examining everything excreted during subsequent days — all so they could see which bones would dissolve inside the human digestive system, and which bones would not.
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Title made me think "isn't 'try them out' usually one of the first steps?"
Actual content: They tested damage patterns on the tools to find what the tools were used on.
Actual content: They tested damage patterns on the tools to find what the tools were used on.
I live near an experimental archaeological centre with roots going back to the 60's. I read a book by one of the founders, where he relates making his first flint axe at approximately age 16 and being so excited he went straight to the garden and cut down a tree - without asking for permission first... thankfully he had very supportive parents.
Was it a cherry tree he chopped down?
Isn't this pretty much the definition of the scientific method
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Would have been better had they gotten machinists or rural people that otherwise work with their hands to do this. A bunch of scientists playing make believe chopping wood and scraping bone doesn’t convince me much. We would have been just as specialized back then as we are now. And don’t we have 30,000 year old jewelry with intricate carvings? Why the amazement at “wow, this pointy stone chops wood, man?”
Your first couple sentences really confuse me. The scientists playing make believe are playing make believe with years of knowledge and experience studying stone age tools. They are seeking to accurately make believe how the tools are made and used by investigating tools in various states of assembly and wear. Machinists would be playing make believe with a bias toward modern manufacture, materials, and design, and rural people would be playing make believe without any tool making experience because they just buy axes from the hardware store instead of knapping stone and wrapping string. Their input would absolutely be useful, especially with regards to situational use, and I think more fields need cross-participation for this reason, but these scientists aren't less qualified than anyone else for studying prehistoric tools
> We would have been just as specialized back then as we are now.
Can you please cite some evidence for this? My understanding is that specialization into trades was an outcome of the agricultural revolution, which happened quite a bit later than 30,000 BC.
Can you please cite some evidence for this? My understanding is that specialization into trades was an outcome of the agricultural revolution, which happened quite a bit later than 30,000 BC.
I've read that many ant species have more "roles" than a typical British village prior to the industrial revolution.
Note that this is in agreement with you, that the number of trades open for people to work in was pretty small until fairly recently.
Note that this is in agreement with you, that the number of trades open for people to work in was pretty small until fairly recently.
Knowing how to make stone tools is a standard part of an archaeologists's job description. Not sure you can call doing their job "make believe".
Don't we have small populations around the globe that still do this? Wouldnt it have neen easier to observe them?
They're not frozen in time.
Spear fishing hunter gatherers, for example, are out there but they've moved on to using steel rebar for barb points over stingraytail barbs, wire wrap for binding over chewing just the right branch fibres, and iPhones over smoke signals.
It's similar but not the same: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gmCX7R-W4c
Spear fishing hunter gatherers, for example, are out there but they've moved on to using steel rebar for barb points over stingraytail barbs, wire wrap for binding over chewing just the right branch fibres, and iPhones over smoke signals.
It's similar but not the same: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gmCX7R-W4c
Where are the iPhone using hunter gatherers? Not snark: I want to know more about them.
Papua New Guinea, Northern Australia communities, also cattle herders in Africa.
That covers pure traditional hunter-gather | slash and burn agrarian | herding, etc as traditional lifestyles that are still mostly practiced in mostly traditional forms by some parts of communities but also supplemented with tourism, children going to school to learn law and other skills, FiFo mine work, etc.
https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-30500591
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmKxmxk6Gas
That covers pure traditional hunter-gather | slash and burn agrarian | herding, etc as traditional lifestyles that are still mostly practiced in mostly traditional forms by some parts of communities but also supplemented with tourism, children going to school to learn law and other skills, FiFo mine work, etc.
https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-30500591
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmKxmxk6Gas
Thanks for the story and the video. They're both interesting, but had no tech-specific information. If anyone has anything like that, I'd be interested in seeing it.
I had read a bit about Masaai keeping track of each other and their herds with mobile phones. Thank you for reminding me about that.
I had read a bit about Masaai keeping track of each other and their herds with mobile phones. Thank you for reminding me about that.
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Experimental archaeology is at least 50 year old, but they're presenting that like it's brand new.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experimental_archaeology
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experimental_archaeology
There's got to be some miscommunication between the researchers and the journalists as to the contribution. I know anthropology undergraduates who years ago had whole courses where they had to make and use their own stone tools.
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Are Chomsticks considered primitive tech?
It would be very curious to see what modern, educated, exclusively high-IQ (implied from them having managed to graduate in science) humans can achieve in a stone age setting.
Ideas of outcomes possible, experiments conductable and apparata buildable this way are welcome :-)