4000 BCE: (Native Copper Use Preceding Metallurgy — Copper Being Put to Use Before the Development of Actual Metallurgy Because It Also Exists in the Form of…

4000 BCE: (Native Copper Use Preceding Metallurgy — Copper Being Put to Use Before the Development of Actual Metallurgy Because It Also Exists in the Form of “Native Copper” — Relatively Pure Bits of the Metal Embedded in Ores — This Kind of Use Taking Place in Several Areas of Africa-Eurasia, a Notable American Example Being the Native American Makers of the Old Copper Complex of the North American Great Lakes Region from Six Thousand Years Ago, but the Outright Smelting of Copper Ores Developing in Several Regions of the World Only After Ceramic Technology Became Known in Those Areas — Establishing a Technological Dependency of Metallurgy on Ceramics): Copper was put to use before the development of actual metallurgy because it also exists here and there in the world in the form of “native copper” — relatively pure bits of the metal embedded in ores. This kind of use took place in several areas of Africa-Eurasia. In the Americas, a notable example would be the Native American makers of the Old Copper Complex of the North American Great Lakes region from six thousand years ago. But the outright smelting of copper ores developed in several regions of the world only after ceramic technology became known in those areas. The note establishes a crucial technological dependency: metallurgy required ceramics as a prerequisite. The kiln temperatures needed to smelt copper from ore could only be achieved by peoples who had already mastered the art of firing clay — an art that, as the main text has demonstrated, was invented independently in Africa, East Asia, and possibly elsewhere. The Old Copper Complex of the Great Lakes, dating to around 4000 BCE, used native copper that could be cold-hammered into shape without smelting, but true metallurgy — the extraction of metal from ore through controlled high-temperature firing — required the prior existence of ceramic technology. This means that Africa’s early invention of ceramics, among the oldest in the world, was not merely a revolution in food storage and preparation. It was the enabling technology for all subsequent metallurgy. Without the kiln, there is no smelter. Without the potter, there is no smith. The women who invented ceramics in the Sahara twelve thousand years ago laid the technological foundation for the Bronze Age and the Iron Age alike.