Copper is the ultimate tool for innovation
tk (Wes L. Cockx/)Stone was cutting-edge until about 10,000 years ago, when our ancestors discovered a better material from which to fashion their arrows and axes: copper. Archaeologists believe it was the first metal manipulated by human hands, and since then, it has enabled some of our greatest inventions. Now copper is the third-most-consumed metal in the world. These six technologies show how it helped shape our civilization over the millennia.Metallurgy The oldest metal object unearthed to date is a tiny 6th millennium BCE copper awl found in the Middle East. Because it’s commonly found as a pure metal instead of mixed in ores, copper was ideal for human’s invention of metallurgy, the process of smelting and casting metals. This enabled early civilizations to wield hardier axes and arrows.Bronze Copper is a fairly soft metal, but you can mix it with others to create tough alloys. Around 3000 BCE, Sumerians...