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Copper workers' experiments might have helped usher in Iron Age
- saalweachter 1y agoSo the actual archaeological discovery notwithstanding, does anyone know why the headline would be surprising? Like, who else would it be who led the transition from copper to iron, if not the people working with copper?
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago> who else would it be who led the transition from copper to iron, if not the people working with copper? Karl Benz wasn’t a teamster. Hematite colours ochre clay red. I could see just as plausible a route of origin coming through pottery, where someone stuck a lump of hematite into a kiln or whatnot.
- saalweachter 1y ago> Karl Benz wasn’t a teamster. Well, no, but he was a locomotive engineer before going into automobiles. > I could see just as plausible a route of origin coming through pottery, Oh, that makes sense. It looks like kilns for pottery can be hotter than for copper, hot enough for iron (although I don't know if that's modern kilns or ancient ones), so it does seem possible you'd first notice the new metal around pottery kilns instead.
- macintux 1y agoDiscussed yesterday (same story, different source): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45406090 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45406090
- gus_massa 1y agoRecent discusion from another url https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45406090 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45406090 123 points | 1 day ago | 79 comments