Early history of mineral resource use

Beginning with the Stone Age, people have used minerals both to forge the material part of civilization and to express their artistic natures.

Background

There were inventors and great thinkers in the family tree of humankind many thousands of years before recorded history began. One of them was the first to use a as a tool, which was an important step in the ascent of humankind because it gave people greater control over their world and their lives. Someone was the first to make a pot, the first to find a use for tar, the first to beat native copper into a useful shape. Somewhere in Mesopotamia in the seventh millennium BCE, someone invented the kiln. A kiln is a furnace that retains and focuses a fire’s heat and allows the airflow to be controlled. The kiln technology of the eastern Mediterranean, Mesopotamia, and Egypt was unsurpassed, and it was there that production techniques for pottery, bricks, cement, glass, copper, and iron were first mastered.

Stone Tools

The oldest stone tools were crude and were made from whatever rocks were at hand. Later tools were made from stones chosen because they could be shaped by chipping and retain a sharp edge. Flints, cherts, and jaspers were among the most common stones used. Obsidian is more brittle than flint, but its edge can be made very sharp. When it was available and there was someone skilled enough to work it, obsidian was preferred for cutting tools.

To shape a stone by chipping, a second stone may be used to strike glancing blows along the edge of the first stone. Common stone tools include hand axes, scrapers, flint knives, and awls (used to make holes in hides). Stone points were fastened to spears and arrows. Sickles to cut grain were made by setting sharp stone chips into wooden handles. A hollow can be formed in a stone by pecking with a hard sharp rock. Stone bowls, lamps, and traylike grindstones were made with this procedure from limestone, sandstone, granite, and basalt. (Grain was ground by placing it in the grindstone and then rubbing it with a smaller handheld stone.)

Building with Stone

Because of the relative ease with which limestone and sandstone can be shaped, they are often used in buildings. Granite is more durable, but is harder to shape. is formed from an underground mass of molten that cools very slowly. and sandstone are rocks. Sediments turn to rock as the pressure of overlying layers squeezes water from between the sediment particles. As the water is driven out, compounds dissolved in the water come out of solution and cement the sediment particles together. Calcite (calcium carbonate), silica (silicon dioxide) and hematite (iron oxide) are typical cementing agents.

Limestone is mostly calcium carbonate. It occasionally is precipitated as a shallow sea evaporates, but more often it is built up from shells of dead sea organisms. A limestonelike sediment containing a large fraction of calcium magnesium carbonate is called dolomite and is a little harder than limestone. Limestone and dolomite subjected to sufficient heat and pressure become marble.

With the passage of time, people became proficient at quarrying, shaping, and moving stone. The great pyramid of Khufu was constructed about 2600 BCE. It is 50 percent taller than the Statue of Liberty and is estimated to contain 2,300,000 stone blocks weighing an average of 2.3 metric tons each. The core is made from huge yellowish limestone blocks from a nearby quarry, while the outer face and the inner passageways are of a finer limestone brought from farther away. Khufu’s burial chamber lies deep within the pyramid and is built of granite from Aswān.

The leaning tower of Pisa, another fine example of early stone construction, was begun in 1174 CE, more than three thousand years after the construction of the great pyramid. The tower is constructed of white marble and has colored marble inlays on the exterior. Its walls are nearly 4 meters thick at the base and taper to about half that at the top, 56 meters above the ground. In spite of its pronounced tilt, it is a beautiful structure of arches and columns.

Cement

Gypsum is a soft rock that forms as a precipitate when a restricted body of seawater evaporates. Chemically, it is hydrous calcium sulfate. (“Hydrous” means that water molecules are incorporated into the mineral’s structure.) If powdered and heated to drive off its water content, gypsum becomes the basic ingredient of mortar. The Egyptians used gypsum mortar in building the pyramids. When limestone is heated in a kiln, carbon dioxide is driven off, leaving quicklime (calcium oxide). If clayey limestone is used, the quicklime will contain large amounts of silica and alumina. This mix is called hydraulic lime. Adding water to hydraulic lime produces a cement that will set and harden even underwater by forming calcium silicates and aluminates. The Romans produced a hydraulic lime mortar called pozzolana by combining quicklime with sand and powdered volcanic tuff mined near the Italian town of Pozzuoli. Pozzolana was used in the construction of the Colosseum at Rome.

Building with Brick

Construction stone is rare in the fertile land beside the Euphrates, so the ancient Mesopotamians built with bricks. Ruins at Ur of the Chaldees have yielded both burned and unburned bricks that are five thousand years old. Clay suitable for making bricks is found throughout the world. Clay particles are very fine and consist primarily of various forms of hydrous aluminum silicates along with organic material and other minerals. Bricks are usually shaped in a mold and then left in the sun to dry. Dried bricks may then be placed in a kiln for a process called “burning,” in which they are heated enough to cause the clay particles to fuse.

The ancient city of Babylon, which reached its zenith under Nebuchadnezzar in the sixth century BCE, was built with bricks. Its massive outer wall was built with a core of sun-dried brick and faced with burned brick. The famous Ishtar gate stood 12 meters high and featured 575 glazed brick mosaics in which golden dragons and young bulls stood out in relief against a blue-green background. One hundred twenty golden lions on blue-green backgrounds lined the walls of the street that led from the Ishtar gate to the temple of Marduk.

Pottery and Porcelain

Pottery making is probably as old as civilization itself. To be durable, a clay pot must be fired in a kiln so that clay particles fuse and the glaze (if present) melts to form a glassy surface. In the Near East, pottery dating back to the seventh millennium BCE has been discovered. Painted pottery was already common in northern Mesopotamia before 5000 BCE, and the high-speed potter’s wheel was used in ancient Susa by 4000 BCE. About that same time, the Egyptians began working with colorful and lustrous glazes that may have led them to the development of glass.

Porcelain is a type of ceramic made from kaolin (a special white clay with very few impurities), feldspar (aluminum silicates), and quartz (silica). Porcelain paste is stiff and harder to shape than normal clay paste, but it retains its shape well at high temperatures. Because of this, porcelain pieces with very thin walls can be made. The Chinese became experts at crafting porcelain pieces and in using colorful enamels and glazes to decorate them. Vases made during the Ming dynasty (1368-1644 CE) have become legendary.

Glass

Some of the oldest glass objects known are beads found in an Egyptian tomb dated at 2500 BCE. About a thousand years later, the first glass vessels appear in Egypt. These vessels were made by winding a string of glass around a clay mold held on the end of a rod. The technique of glassblowing was in use by the first century BCE, although some tomb murals indicate it may have been used much earlier.

The Romans were the first to use glass windows, and there are glass windows in the public baths of Pompeii, the city destroyed by an eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE. As they did with pottery, some artists created glass vessels of exquisite beauty. Other artists turned their talents to stained-glass windows, such as those of the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris (consecrated in 1248 CE). Its stained-glass windows depicting biblical scenes completely dominate the walls and soar upward in a kaleidoscope of red, blue, green, yellow, and white.

The chief constituent of glass is white sand (silica), but melting pure silica requires a temperature above 1,700° Celsius. If soda ash (sodium carbonate) is added as a flux, the melting point is reduced to 850° Celsius, a temperature more easily achieved. The resulting glass is water soluble, but adding limestone (calcium carbonate) to the melt results in insoluble glass. A typical mixture is 75 percent silica, 10 percent lime, and 15 percent soda. Soda ash can be obtained by wood or seaweed ash or by mining natron, another salt deposited as an entrapped sea evaporates.

The Seven Metals of Antiquity

As far back as 8000 BCE, Stone Age people gathered shining bits of gold to use as ornaments and decorations. Seams of gold in solid rock such as granite are called lode deposits. They are mined by tunneling into the rock. As gold-bearing rock weathers away, gold dust and gold nuggets wash into streambeds to form placer deposits. Placer deposits may be mined by scooping up sand and gravel in a pan and then carefully washing away everything but the dense grains of gold. The story of Jason and the Golden Fleece probably refers to the ancient practice of placing a fleece in running water where it could collect gold dust as sand was washed over it. The golden death mask of Tutankhamen (1352 BCE) is an excellent example of the artistry with which gold was worked in ancient times.

Copper was discovered about the same time as gold, since it can also be found naturally as a metal. Copper pins dating from 7000 BCE have been found in Turkey. Malachite is a green-colored copper often found near a seam of copper metal. Copper metal may be produced from malachite by mixing it with charcoal and heating the mixture in a kiln. The earliest tools cast from molten copper appear in Mesopotamia around 4000 BCE.

Lead may have been the next metal discovered, since lead beads dated to 6500 BCE have been found in Turkey. Lead does not occur as a free metal in nature, but the lead ore called galena (lead sulfide) does have a metallic look. If galena is combined with charcoal and heated to only 327° Celsius, metallic lead is produced. Since lead is soft and ductile, the Romans found it well suited for making pipes. Lead often contains traces of silver. Silver artifacts date back to about 4000 BCE. Metallic silver is rarely found in nature, but it does occur. Pure silver is harder than gold but softer than copper. As with gold, silver was first used to make ornaments and jewelry.

By 2500 BCE, the Sumerians discovered that mixing different types of ore produced a metal that melted at a lower temperature and was harder than copper. They had produced a copper-tin now called bronze. Bronze was widely used to make tools and weapons. Tin was not produced as a separate metal until five hundred years later. Tin ore is stannic oxide, a hard material that remains after softer surrounding rock weathers away. Mercury can be obtained by heating cinnabar (mercury sulfide) in the presence of oxygen. Mercury has been found in tombs dating from 1500 BCE. It is a liquid at room temperature and can dissolve silver and gold to form an amalgam, a process that is sometimes used in mining.

Smelted iron did not become common until around 1500 BCE, although it was first produced one thousand years earlier; meteoric iron was used even before that. Metallic iron may be produced by heating a mixture of hematite (iron oxide) and charcoal in a kiln. Only the rich could afford bronze, but when iron became cheaper than bronze, iron tools and weapons were made in large numbers. Being more broadly distributed through society than bronze, iron greatly changed farming and warfare.

Salt

Salt (sodium chloride) is essential for human health. It is generally accepted that a diet consisting mostly of raw or roasted meat requires no added salt, but if the meat is boiled or if the diet consists primarily of grains, some salt is essential. Salt has also been used as a preservative for fish and meat since ancient times.

People collected salt at springs or from dried tidal pools at the seashore. Later, ocean water was let into artificial pools that were then sealed and allowed to dry. In colder climates, was boiled down in ceramic trays and later in metal trays. Many areas of the world have underground salt beds formed as ancient seas dried up. Rock salt has been mined from such deposits beginning in Roman times, if not earlier.

Petroleum Products and Natural Gas

The use of petroleum goes back to the Stone Age, when was used to cement stones to wooden handles. (“Bitumen,” loosely used, refers to various tars and asphalt.) The Sumerians, in 3000 BCE, and later the Assyrians and the Babylonians, used a mortar of bitumen, sand, and reeds for their great brick structures. They also made asphalt roads, used tar as an adhesive for tiles, and caulked ships with tar. Dioscorides, a surgeon in Nero’s army, said that the Sicilians burned oil in their lamps in place of olive oil. Eventually, petroleum grease was used as a lubricant, paraffin wax was used for candles, and naphtha (a highly volatile oil) found use as an incendiary agent in warfare.

At first, bitumen was taken from natural tar pits and oil and gas seeps. Three of the most famous are the La Brea Tar Pits of California, the Pitch Lake of Trinidad, and the Perpetual Fires of Baku, a large gas seep area in Azerbaijan. Later, oil was taken from tunnels and pits dug near oil seeps. By the sixth century BCE, the Chinese could drill wells 100 meters deep. While drilling for or salt water, Chinese miners occasionally found oil or instead. This is exactly what happened to the Chinese while drilling for salt water in Sichuan about 250 CE. Being opportunists, the workers at some salt works burned the gas to provide heat to evaporate the brine. With the passage of time, the production and use of petroleum increased, but it did not become a major resource until kerosene became cheaper than whale oil in the mid-nineteenth century.

Coal

Coal is the fossilized remains of plants that lived hundreds of millions of years ago. A coal bed begins as a thick layer of peat in a swamp that is later invaded by the advancing sea. Layers of sediment compress the peat, which dries, hardens, and eventually turns into coal. Coal consists primarily of carbon but also contains smaller amounts of water, light oil, tar, sulfur, and phosphorus.

The Chinese are said to have used coal in the first century BCE, and in the thirteenth century CE Marco Polo described a black stone that the Chinese dug from the mountains and burned for fuel. Polo seems to have been unaware that coal was already used in Europe and England. In fact, Theophrastus described various Mediterranean locations where coal was used as fuel in the fourth century BCE. Long before Polo’s time, “sea coal” was gathered regularly from some of England’s beaches, where it washed ashore, and coal was mined from shallow pits in other regions. However, Europeans used coal only on a small scale until the fifteenth century CE, when it became widely used in kilns.

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