A new investigation puts us closer to discovering the true origin of iron-and not, it was not a deliberate invention. It may even have emerged from experiments by copper castors.
Long before the ovens were able to merge iron ore, people already knew iron objects. They were rare and precious, often made from meteorites, explains.
“Iron is the world’s excellence industrial metal, But the lack of written records, the trend of iron to rust and the scarcity of research in production places made it difficult to seek their origins, ”said Nathaniel Erb-Satullo, a researcher of archaeological science.
Hematitis was not used as ore, but as melting materialadded to the oven to improve the quality and performance of the copper.
But what transformed society was the ability to raila much more abundant resource than covers or gold.
Now a new one from the University of Cranfield published in Journal of Archaeological Science reveals that Iron casting may have emerged from experiments by copper castors, not a calculated invention, as it has been believed so far.
The storage of hematite shows that our ancestors understood this mineral as a distinct appealand not as an accidental inclusion in copper ores.
And this even demonstrated that our ancestors were not only trying to refine the copper, but also to experiment with minerals in ways that had unintentional but revolutionary results: A “random” discovery that generated one of the greatest technological advances ever.
