Re: The joy of Technology

On 03/11/2024 23:35, rbowman wrote:

On Sun, 3 Nov 2024 20:59:45 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
 

That level of technology is called “chalcolithic”. That is, they mainly
use fine stone tools, but they have also found a limited use for copper,
which can be found lying around pure in some places, is easily workable
but too soft to do much with. And they haven’t yet developed smelting
technology to extract metals from ores and create harder alloys out of
them, like bronze.

 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallurgy_in_pre-Columbian_Mesoamerica
 
South and Central America advanced beyond hammering out found copper.
There isn't much evidence in North America.

 
Bronze needs tin, and there might not have been much around.

 
Iron is a *huge* step up.