Metallurgy, History of

Abstract

People had inhabited the earth for hundreds of thousands of years before they began to use metals. During the Stone Age, up to about 10,000 BC, the only tools available were pieces of wood, bone, flint and other stones, or sea shells. The ancient peoples used only those metals that were available without mining or chemical treatment, for example, pieces of native gold, silver, and copper, and rare pieces of meteoric iron (which can be easily identified by its nickel content), but these were too small in quantity to be of any cultural consequence.