Jane Keenan, Age 14, Of Asheville, N.C., for her question:
When did mankind learn to use metals?
Step by patient step our remote ancestors learned to chip and then to polish objects of stone and wood. Later they carved bone and ivory and painted colorful cave murals. Progress was slow. Then, here and there, ancient artisans mastered the skills of metallurgy. Modern history began a few short centuries after mankind discovered the use of metals.
Mankind's success depends upon how well he can cope with the forces of nature and use the materials around him to make lift safe and comfortable for himself and his family. In the modern world, some countries art more advanced in these skills than others. The skills of industry and the know how in agriculture art much farther advanced in America than in certain South American and African countries.
In the total human picture, this state of affairs always has existed. The new stone age began in prehistory, when groups of people settled in friendly regions around the globe. Even then some groups were more skillful, more advanced than others in painting and carving, building and farming, weaving and pottery making. Then trading routes opened between europe and distant Asia, from the Norselands southward to Africa. And gradually the more backward tribes learned to improve thmselves.
Some 6000 years ago the Egyptians pounded soft, native copper into coverings for their shields and buckles. In the next 1000 years this skill spread to Persia and Mesopotamia, Crete and Asia Minor, Cyprus and India. It took another 1000 years to reach Spain and the distant steppes of Russia. The use of copper did little to improve man's way of lift but it started the age of metallurgy. Everywhere it was followed by the discovery of bronze and iron. And these alloy metals were a dramatic advance in Man's history.
An alloy is made by melting or smelting two or more metals together, and a good alloy is superior to either of its metal ingredients. Bronze is tougher and more durable than the tin and copper from which it is made, and its discovery ushered in the bronze age at the dawn of modern history.
The earliest bronze making began around the Danube river near the metal rich mountains of western Asia. Weapons and other objects of bronze were made some 5000 years ago. A few hundred years later the skills of making tough alloy metals, such as bronze and iron, had spread throughout all the civilized world.
When bronze was discovered, the weapons that had served mankind since his ancient cave days suddenly became obsolete. Northern tribes with bronze and iron swords swept down upon the fertile valleys of the south. Ancient kingdoms were forced to fall or learn the new art of metallurgy. In prehistory, one of the great periods of unrest occurred around 2400 b.c. this is the time when settled communities first learned the uses of metal alloys.