Fiction Writer with follow up question on human advancement

[walrusman]

Ok, so for 200,000 years or more we, humans, remained wood, bone, rock specialists with not much advancement in technology over that time before we somehow discovered iron and copper and leaped into the future.

 

Have I got that right?

 

Ok, so my question is...did we stay idle for 200,000 years because of our lack of intelligence and inquisitive nature necessary for the discovery of such minerals? Or...?

[SkepticLance]

There is no clear answer to your question. We do not know what progress was made over the 200,000 years. Most of the technology would have been biodegradable, and thus left no records. eg. did they have the ability to tan animal skins? In theory, it is easy.

 

The first use of metals was probably from the odd rare lump of naturally occurring bare metal - eg copper and gold. However, it would not have become widespread until metal could be extracted. Certain copper ores yield copper from reduction under heat with carbon. It is likely that this was discoverd by accident when someone kindled a fire on top of such an ore. When the fire went out, they discovered some very sooty lumps of copper among the ashes. Of course, copper by itself is not as useful as bronze, since it holds an edge only for a short time. Otzi the iceman from about 5000 years ago had an axe head made of copper, so it probably was considered to be of value.

 

The next big step involved someone learning to blend it with tin to make bronze - a much more useful material. Tin ores were abundant in Britain. Perhaps someone smelting copper accidentally mixed the copper ore with tin ore???

 

The Hittites about 1000 BC were the first to smelt iron ore. The process was similar to copper, but using much hotter furnaces. Perhaps someone found that blowing through the coals of a fire made it much hotter, and accidentally used iron ore???

 

I personally suspect that each step forward took an accident combined with a primeval genius to observe and take it a step on.

[Sisyphus]

I don't think the leap was so much the discovery of metals as agriculture. You have agriculture, you have free time and thus division of labor (not everybody is a hunter/gatherer), and you can stay in one place and therefore have a place for more stuff (there's a point to producing more than you can carry on your back).

[Martin]

Sisyphus mentioned agriculture. Also I would guess that acquisition of language, sociopolitical structure, and/or commerce would need to have preceded tool and weapon metalurgy----and for practical reasons.

 

Maybe you could think of people as working on those things, which took time to get down, before they took up metalurgy

[augment]

I think it took so long because they started with nothing and had to create everything new. Our technology progresses so fast because we already have the knowledge from previous generations. Having a written language and recording history play in a big role in our technological advancment.

[Atellus]

The responses so far seem to be suggesting something along these lines:

 

Essentially, agricultural technology is key. This technology is perhaps the simplest to develop as initially it would be based on observation and folklore. Basic agriculture can be carried out with very basic tools that you pick up off the ground. When you get good at it you generate a surplus of food so that some people can be scholars instead of working to harvest their dinner all day. Then over time you develop a culture based on an ever growing body of accurately recorded knowledge and observations upon which each successive generation can build. This, perhaps, stimulates the imagination and creativity of the populace at large who have the precedent of their antecedents ability to divine new techniques in agriculture and textiles, which proves to them that it's possible to make such advances, as opposed to assigning all currently existing arts and crafts to the generosity of the gods/spirits/earth mother who bestowed them on man, intact.

 

With all this in place, you have merely to wait for the most important factor:

 

Serendipity!

[walrusman]

Great replies. Agriculture never dawned on me really. That's why I come here to ask these questions. And I like SkepticLance's theory on the advancement of metals.

 

In short, you all are basically agreeing that a relative mastery of agriculture would allow a division of labor, thus leading to scholars and etc which would lead us to discovery of these metals and other things.

 

So allow me to append the question a little then...

 

If humans had the "knowledge" of metals already - say thousands of present day humans from all different walks of life suddenly zapped to another planet or something (not my storyline, but works for this parallel) where these minerals were only found in typical plant life but no "ores" to speak of - could we still advance like we have? Electrical networks, machines, and etc.

 

I'm wondering how inventive and pioneering we can really be. Seems futile to try and figure out how to extract these minerals from vegetaion to forge metals, but then I wouldn't be all that surprised if we could do it.

 

What do you all think?

[Atellus]

Need more specifics on the form these plant based minerals take. Are they present in minute amounts or are these things basically metal crystalline organisms of some kind. If you burn one in a hot enough fire, how much metal would be left behind after any organic components were combusted?

 

One thing that is obvious from the history of our species is that humanity is an extremely resourceful and imaginative survivor. If metals were available in this form in useful quantities, at some point someone would notice and divine a way to exploit them.

 

Perhaps another and more cogent question would be to ask exactly what proportion of your present day population that are beamed to this world would actually possess any such knowledge? We live in a world of comfort where, in many places, scholars heavily outnumber craftsmen and tradesmen.

 

How many media consultants does it take to smelt copper?

[SkepticLance]

There is no reason in theory why humans could not obtain metals from plant material. You could suggest, as part of the story line, that the alien plants made much greater use of, say, iron in their structure. Thus, a typical alien plant was 5% iron by weight.

 

Then your colonists could convert the plant material to ash; carry out some process of concentration, such as panning the ash with water, and then smelt it in furnaces with charcoal to reduce the residual iron ash to iron.

[walrusman]

Need more specifics on the form these plant based minerals take. Are they present in minute amounts or are these things basically metal crystalline organisms of some kind. If you burn one in a hot enough fire, how much metal would be left behind after any organic components were combusted?

 

I guess I was thinking it would be the same basic proportion you would see in our vegetation. But that's an interesting direction... Anyway, I don't know anything about this. I have no idea what plant holds more iron than another, or how much for that matter.

 

Perhaps another and more cogent question would be to ask exactly what proportion of your present day population that are beamed to this world would actually possess any such knowledge? We live in a world of comfort where, in many places, scholars heavily outnumber craftsmen and tradesmen.

 

Really? I figured it would be opposite. I figured you'd have a nice fair proportion of blue collar and white collar workers, with a few specialists smart enough to figure out this new world and direct them from there.

 

SkepticLance - great take except I don't want my humans to advance any actually. That's why I was trying to eliminate ores from the equation. But then we need iron to live, so it's going to have to be available in some edible form like plant life. But then that also opens the door for humans to exploit that large scale and advance - bringing me back where I started. I was hoping I was wrong, but I'm afraid we're just too damn persistant.

[SkepticLance]

Walrusman.

I cannot see an unsophisticated people extracting metals from plants unless the plants have exceptionally high levels of metals.

 

There is a project under way today to genetically modify plants to grow on the tailings of old gold mines, to concentrate gold in their tissue for later extraction. However, this is a very sophisticated technology, and even then it is still under research. They might not succeed.