"Alright guys, today I'm gonna show you how to make a muffin pan. It's completely unrelated to me being shouted at by my mom for ruining her muffin pan..."
How did the ancient humans actually started metalworking? "Look at these green rock Bob, I bet if we crush half a ton of them, put them in pee, wait until thunder hits it, wait until water evaporate, go to volcano and melt the powder we can make a great arrowhead of it." - "Sure thing Jeff, i thought about it too!"
Trial and error. They didn't have the knowledge that we have today because they were the ones making the discoveries, but they do have our same level of intelligence. The natural environment is what they had to work with, so they had plenty of experience and knew that doing different things occasionally results in amazing results. We can assume that some of them were *very* intelligent, akin to our best thinkers today, and probably led the way in terms of advancements like smelting, toolmaking, etc.
@bobby ruest you don't know what your talking about you are right on one thing tho char coal thats wood coal burns at about a 1000 but there are other coals and the rest you just said is incorrect
Can you imagine what it was like in this world _before_ the first intentional copper smelt? I've heard it theorised that the first smelter/ blacksmith would probably have started their career by cleaning out the ash from "last night's" fire and noticing that there was a very hard, somewhat malleable and likely shiny (dull lustre) lump of "stuff" in the pile of ash. They probably then uttered the rallying cry of every scientist throughout the ages: "That's odd..."
@@t84t748748t6 More likely is that they used large stones to surround the fire (sometimes dropping them into the hot embers). Some would contain those precious metals.
This video would be even more interesting if you explored low tech methods to extract the copper or even if you discussed how you think they may have done it. They didn't have a science lab to make their copper tools. ;)
I am pretty sure they simply used much purer copper and/ or used other, most likely less efficent, extraction methods. Note that he says that he uses "the best way" and not the way of caveman.
As an experienced rock hunter: Always stay together, wear a hardhat when there is any chance of anything falling on your head (ALWAYS) and don't go into abandoned mines and start digging.
@@WowYaska Probably very badly, with a lot of zinc smoke. Hopefully they new to stay out of the direction the smoke was blowing. It's possible to die from just 1 period of smelting if you inhale it :/ They would make a furnace of clay and a probably a clay crucible.
@@WowYaska They would melt it, in a forge, pour off the dross, or knock it off with a rock hammer, then melt it again, knock it off, and again,and it gradually emerged purified. I have done this myself.
The Spanish Inquisition wrong it should be fear, fear and surprise TWO! Your two main weapons are fear surprise and an almost ruthless efficiency THREE! Your three main weapons are fear surprise ruthless efficiency and an almost fanatical devotion to the pope oh DAM
You say the copper age was a "brief period" from roughly 5000 to 3000 BC, that's about the same ammount of time as it is between the foundation of the Roman empire and now
@sheldon pereira the thing with copper is that it turns green as it oxidize so finding red copper on the surface might not be possible. He could easily go into the plastic age and make a plastic camera.
So you found a plane ticket to and from, a car rental, and accounted for your time at min wage and only spent 535 dollars? You needa share your travel agent with me.
American Engineering I don't think that this is a wasteful video. I don't think I'm the only person who finds these videos highly educational while still being interesting.
He can asssume its pure enough for his purposes. He isnt looking for pure copper, he is looking for a workable metal. It just so happens copper is one of the easiest to extract.
X-ray florescence isn't exactly a highly accurate method of assay. It will give you roughly what's in a sample and a very rough approximation of the ratios, but it should never, ever be used to determine purity. At the very least you need a gas chromatograph for that. The X-ray guns are a quick and dirty SWAG.
Well the quickest way is to just compare densities. What else would be in there? Sulfur, lead, iron/carbon (steel), and whatever was in the original ore. Silicates? I don't know. It would probably be lighter than pure copper, but maybe not. Anyway, pretty easy to do a quick and dirty density test.
@@zombesn that would be like the purity tests the ancients knew to do. It would be a start. That's also why Andy pulled off the slag from the top when it was melted, though the pour looked like it might have had a chunk of impurities on the bottom.
They didn't have the right kind of raw material. With thin coatings of mineral, leaching is the most economical and fastest way. Otherwise you have to chip off all the little bits of mineral one rock at a time vs. soaking and dissolving mineral while you can use the time for other activities.
yeah I've seen some east asian dudes make some bronze age smelting with clay ovens and hand powered blowers to keep the wooden fire going. And they got almost all the copper just by crushing the rocks and just dumped it in to the oven. about 24h, and they already had drops of copper at the bottom of the oven. Then they took that and placed those in these stone cups that they reheated until they had them smelted. Overall no more than two days of work. This coating shit no doubt catches all the copper, but it too the guy a week or two to get the copper out.
Not possible. Coal and diamonds are are made from the same base material but are created by two completely different processes. One cannot form the other.
Not sure if analytics tell you what parts were watched or what point they watched until but I hope you know that putting your ads at the beginning and splitting them into two parts doesn't stop me from skipping them.
Pssshwwwaahhh ... here in South Africa we have baboons that can come into our houses... And lions, elephants, zebras, rhinos, Eiland buck and many more in nature reserves.. lol and sheep and domestic livestock . Lol
"Using accurate classical 9000BC techniques that our ancient human ancestors used to extract and purify the copper - one of the first metals our species ever purified.." ...uses a plastic bucket to collect the rocks, throws them into a 4x4 Off Road Jeep, drives home to electrically grind the ore into a pure sulphuric acid solution and connect to a battery and strain through coffee filters and sulphuric acid onto a metal muffin tray.. Uhhhmm... I spotted a mistake... Real accurate, except for the one anachronism where you are wearing a modern watch in this video. Otherwise I would have been totally bought it.. I was fooled up until then!
I dont really get where he said "this is how they did it 3-5k years ago" I know its a channel concept, but where does it say that?? I can only read in the description how he did it
@Please Complete All Fields He did certainly not use the same chemical process. Electricity hasn't been around that long, and while sulfuric acid was already discovered a very long time ago, it could not have been manufactured in the required amounts. Instead, they probably reduced the copper ores by repeatedly baking/smelting the ores in a furnace.
@@entcraft44 He did if briefly explain why the modern refining methods: The modern ore is too low grade to use ancient methods designed for high grade ore.
WOW! I've held plenty of pieces of Malachite and Azurite in my hands over the years... but to see them occurring in the field in the form of huge blue cliffs is quite amazing.
If snakes are on your mind, stomp heavily around where you intend to work, the stomping will alert snakes as to something to big to eat approaches, the snake will either haul butt or sound off alerting you, so you can take safe steps. PEACE
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Some auto parts stores sell it. There's a half dozen ways to make it from scratch, and it's basically ancient tech. It's also a good idea to make pH paper beforehand. Grow some red cabbage, extract the pigment onto slips of paper and voila.
Burn sulphur in a vessel & bubble the evolved Sulphur Trioxide gas through water. It's a crude method & it generates a lot of heat. S8 + 12O2 > 8SO3^ SO3 + H2O > H2SO4
Was digging for some iron when broke some stone. To my surprise, the cave started to cave in around me. I rushed to put a torch on the ground and it saved me from the cave in. There was a lot of gravel.
@@Ontarianmm I live in the middle of nowhere and yes.. they make themselves known ...very known.. Woke up at 2:43 am to hear what sounded like a messed up speaker.
Where the hell am I supposed to find sulfuric acid in the middle of an abandoned island? (Not that I am on one.) It would still be nice if you would smelt the rock, instead... Even if just to show it happening and to compare the alloy yield compared to the pure yield.
@@capnbilll2913 Depends on where you are in the world - and how old the island is. Sulphur is reactive and burns easily so finding it on an island that has vegetation would be rare.
I want to see you try to make a foot powered lathe. (Treadle lathe) It’s supposed to be a pretty simple design and it would be cool to see you attempt that
True. However, I would argue the point is finding and refining resources. Not so much the accurate-to-the-times processing. Granted it would be cool to see how it was done before technology, but the time and effort would be ENORMOUS. I would much rather see the effort put into making things out of the raw resources he has collected.
@@WizzyFilms he said at the end his copper wasn't rich enough to do the inefficient ancient techniques and that he bought rich copper ore and was planning on doing it the old way.
That ingot of copper would have been extremely valuable in ancient times. It could be a short sword, a bunch of arrow heads, religious idol, symbol of status, a piece of armor, or a tool like a hatchet, shovel or farm hoe.
Yeah, labor was cheap, but materials were expensive. A lack of technology to harvest and process metals made acquisition slow and time consuming. Like the video said, ancient times would only mine from rocks rich in copper ore that were easier to extract.
There are RU-vidrs that make everything from scratch. If I was one of them, copper would be extremely valuable. To me that's a big part of electronics. The furthest I've seen someone make it in their series is very small amounts of cast iron that they plan on making into a small knife😂
@@ricksmith1673 Are you really an "MD" and asking that question? Just the arrow heads could mean surviving or winning a battle, or three years worth of big game meat. Try reaching any major organs in a buck or wild pig...
Marcos Mota why the hell would you expect a doctor of medicine to be knowledgeable in all things ancient materials. Even something that is obvious in retrospect might be hard to realize by making that connection.
Yea it cost you more based on a market value, due to your small operation, companies use lots of equipment that does what you did in no time at mass quantities, as far as you getting anything, this was awesome, for amount you mined I didn’t expect that much, great video bud👍🏼
Awesome! I love that you are willing to explore the entire process from beginning to end. We all take this stuff for granted, but you show us how hard it is to do on a diy scale. Thanks for sharing your journey of exploration with us.
You went all the way out there and didn't get a single close up of those amazing looking green cliffs. I really wanted to see what that rock looked like in more detail 😕
I understand this video is already a few months old, but as someone with a Geology Bachelor there are somethings I could point out: *First and most important is safety, You guys let yourselves be separated in an area you were unfamiliar with for quite some time. Although with the dirt roads it`s unlikely you would have gotten lost, what if one of you was bit by a snake? You went into an old abandoned mine tunnel without protective gear, I`m not sure if you had anyone outside knowing your status if the mine had collapsed. You started picking rocks without eye protection, and also you should remember to never go under rock walls that seem to have a negative dip or hanging state. You grinded silicates and worked with acid without proper masks to protect your respiratory system. You may have had someone help you with this stuff, but for those who might see your video and think: Going out with a pickaxe to mine some rock we have no idea about seems like a good idea, it`s not. It`s dangerous. ** Green is not the only color of copper minerals, Blue as well as Brown (bronze) can be indicators. You may have noticed that the surface of those rocks seem to be more Green than their centers. That`s because when in contact with air and water, some minerals can be leached or washed out of rocks, and some other like copper bearing minerals stay. But what has happened here is that Other, less colour intensive copper minerals like Chalcopyrite have weathered into things like malachite. This weathering happens at surface and joints more than other places. *** I see a lot of people in the comments wondering how this was done in ancient times. Extraction of metals from rock has different ways, what was done in this video is usually referred to as Hydrometallurgy in general which still has many different ways. There is also Pyrometallurgy, which you could say was more the case with ancient mining and metallurgy. They both in their essence, have to do with Redox states of elements, in short, in the bronze age people would gather the source rock, put it in a kiln, smelter, someplace they could control the temperatures and what entered and what exited, use fuel, usually wood to heat the rocks, let air in or add other materials in specific times and then gather the desired resultant material such as metals like copper at the end.
Not a lot of people know about it but a small group of native Americans arguable did actually advance beyond the stone age before European intervention. A few tribes in the western Great Lakes region happened upon a copper source, the copper was in nugget form, very pure and required no smelting whatsoever. It was used primarily for jewelery but some examples do exist of copper tools, meaning that technically speaking, those particular tribes had achieved copper age status, its entirely possible that had our European ancestors never met native Americans, they very well might have advanced to a point where the written word couldve arisen, and possibly agriculture etc. North America very well couldve been on its way to resembling the near East of 15,000 years ago...
There are rock chunks laying all around you, why did you have to pick axe that hill? Oh right, for the effect of putting an "effort" to collect. Ok! Reminds me of the game rust.
Very inspiring. It's amazing that early man figured these things out in the first place. I thought copper and iron extraction was 'round about' until I read about Titanium. ... not only things like metals, but look up how chocolate came about and what a complex process it actually is. Who was smoking what when someone said " ... let's make some chocolate".?
I don’t know if it’s occurred to these guys that they’re using steel tools to mine copper. They’re already using a superior metal to do all the work. It’s far more accurate if they had used stone tools to mine for the copper, rather than modern day pickaxes.
First timer to this channel ever and I must say that I liked this video quite a bit. The challenging content and plan you set out when making this video is both interesting and engaging the way you filmed it. I must admit I have always wondered just how one would find a metal and then separate from rock to pour into a pure metal tool mould. Copper being a semi valuable metal, depending on how much you can find and use is a fantastic choice for this video. Anyways well done and I think I am even going to subscribe in case your other videos are just as interesting as this one is!
There was a huge copper "mine", in the Great Lakes, used by the Native Americans and early explorers. I don't know what the purity of the ore was, but it seemed to be a pretty popular place.
My main issue with this except for the fact I got tired only from watching the entire process, is the fact that I kept imagining myself trying to create copper the same method you did (assuming I had the equipment) is a police drug bust into my home and me screaming "please officer, I'm only creating copper!".
Carrying the mattock over your shoulder is a really bad habit especially if you are walking on broken ground. A fall could result in a serious injury. Proper carrying technique is in one hand at the balance point at waste level. The way you would carry a bucket.
Geez, you have such beautiful ore rich places in US. I studied Geology in Germany and we never visited such places full of metal. I guess it is because in Germany the rock is empty, we got all we could get and they even started to reuse the waste rock from heaps to get all rest of usable metal out of it.
Sweden use to have a lot of copper mines, they once had their currency based on it. But I think in the USA they have hugh open pit mines in Arizona and places so there really is no need to play with these places. Just imagine the demand for copper shells in WWI, WWII.
Man it’s so cool! Your making it exactly like they used to make it! If they had all of those technologies you use like beakers, I love this series but I wish you did literally EVERYTHING from scratch, only using the tools you made yourself.
Huge copper nuggets weren't rare -- when they were just lying around to be picked up by any passer-by, wherever they were abundant. Now they're not so abundant. People are generally bad with 'cause-and-effect', no..? And the first 'smelting' was AFAIC simply the melting and flow of copper nuggets in Neolithic fireplaces and hearths. People would tend to notice that sort of thing, wouldn't they?
Thought it was going to be cave man style how to make copper if civilization ended and you had to figure it out from scratch but this is cool too I guess...
