Robittybob1

When did hominids first discover fire?

Would fire still seem magical 5,000 - 12,000 years ago? I tend to think not but let's see what archeologists tell us.

What are the views of the forum?

It was most probably related to magic or witchcraft. I am not sure it was by chance, it may also be the fruit of (early) research.

How do you imagine the research would go? Would they just try out different rocks and see if it was possible to extract some metal? It seems that the step up between copper and iron is a huge step I wonder what made the early humans metallurgists try this?

On the video you provided he used insulation, but it's inside. Probably some ceramic. Aluminium is just cover.

If he would insulate flue, he also would do it from inside, and ceramic wouldn't so easily transport heat to cover.

I don't think there was any insulation in the flue, insulation just lining the firebox only. In my case I insulated the outside of the flue. The flue diameter could end up being a more important parameter. They say hot air rises so how would you make it rise faster and with less resistance?

I wonder if you kept the heated air above the flue, then the air column above the fire would be lighter than the cold air pushing the air through the fire. Could this difference in mass generate a pressure differential greater than the effects of the bellows? From what I've seen it would be more than possible. It would be a matter of learning which parts one would want the air to flow through. In a blast furnace is the air going through the carbon and the ore? For that sounds a bit more difficult that just passing it near/around the carbon/ore pile.

In the above rocket stove video it doesn't take much wind to make the air flows to go in the opposite direction so I'd say at the top of the flue there needs to be a cowling to stop wind gusts going down the flue.

Robbitybob1,

 

I don't have a reference, I just remember one account describing the floor area as waterproof.

 

Regards, TAR

 

The level thing is interesting though. And I just was thinking that the water would make a reflecting surface and I was just imagining what that would look like. It almost reminds me of those H symbols on the relief carvings.

The concept of the "right angle" and the related concepts of horizontal and vertical. Now that would have been a major invention in human development.

The smelting of copper was definitely easy compared to the effort to get iron. It seems remarkable that the concept would have been just happened on by chance. Did they go through a series of experimentation to get the method right, looking for the other ores?

Years ago I invented the first version of the "Rocket Stove" but the version I made ran that hot it appeared to melt the metals it was made from, so I put it into the too hard basket to market it for home heating for it needed to be built of material like that used by the space shuttle heat shields.

Today the internet is full of versions of the "Rocket Stove" but none come close to the temperatures I was getting as my invention preheated the air.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMMO65b8y6k

The other aspect I worked on was too maximise the thermal effect. There appears no need to use bellows if the chimney thermal effect is maximised (keeping it long and insulated).

In the Apostol rocket stove there is no attempt to insulate the flue or to preheat the combustion air, and yet he already gets impressive temperatures. It was made of aluminium, so if the flue was insulated it would have definitely melted away in minutes.

It was possible to get the air moving through the stove so fast that charcoal lumps would be lifted up the chimney (that was getting scary).

I also experimented with a vacuum cleaner that would blow air into it and made it into a "blast furnace" but it just got too dangerous.

At the time I had run experiments to melt various metals and cast iron nearly melted but the ends of the chimney just oxidised and vaporized. (The flue was stainless steel flue pipe)

I am tempted to look at the design again with the intention of smelting iron bloom from ore and charcoal layered as the Africans did without the need for bellows.

Not only that but I think the energy lost in the charcoal making step can be incorporated into the process so it creates its own charcoal (replacing the extra charcoal added later in the video).

....

 

Thinking about the pond and water and the water proof floor made me wonder if clay could have been plastered to the inside walls making sort of a cistern or man made water hole, that would catch rain water both for human consumption, and to attract animals. The animals visiting the water hole would be lost in the maze and could not escape easily once the hunters came up. Especially if they came from the side with the entrance/exit.

 

 

Could the ponding effect be used as a reference to determine horizontal and that would be necessary to start measuring angles?

[i take your word for it that the base was waterproof?]

The Earth formed:

http://www.space.com/19175-how-was-earth-formed.html

http://www.universetoday.com/76509/how-was-the-earth-formed/

 

And then:

http://www.australianminesatlas.gov.au/education/down_under/copper/formed.html

https://uwaterloo.ca/earth-sciences-museum/resources/detailed-rocks-and-minerals-articles/copper

Thanks Strange. This bit makes sense: A chemical reaction precipitates metallic copper.

Those good at chemistry does this sound right: "Hematite (iron oxide) in the lava oxidized the sulphur, depositing copper. The iron and sulphur were carried away as iron sulphate"?

https://uwaterloo.ca/earth-sciences-museum/resources/detailed-rocks-and-minerals-articles/copper

 

 

Keweenawan Copper is associated with lava flows and conglomerates in the Keweenaw Peninsula of Michigan. This deposit is also seen at Mamaise Point, north of Sault Ste Marie. The copper was deposited mainly in conglomerates and flows of basalt, especially near the tops of the flows where the rock had gas bubble holes (vesicles). Hot water, containing sulphur and copper, migrating upwards through the basalt flows and moved across the top of the lava flows where it was sealed by the impermeable barrier of the overlying flow. Hematite (iron oxide) in the lava oxidized the sulphur, depositing copper. The iron and sulphur were carried away as iron sulphate.

Sometimes the copper was deposited in fractures in the rocks. Some masses formed in fractures are of unusual size. The largest of these was a mass found in the Minnesota vein on the Keweenaw Peninsula in 1880. The mass weighed 500 tonnes and was 14 metres thick. These large masses were difficult to mine profitably, so they are still underground!

Copper pebbles and boulders from the Keweenaw Peninsula were moved south by glaciers during the ice age. Copper was used by the native people to make tools. They hammered copper into the desired shape. This hammering made the copper harder, just as a when blacksmith tempers steel. When tempered in this way, knives could be made which were much better than the stone or bone knives which were used before.

Copper was used as early as 15,000 years ago. The metal was found as lumps of native copper and could be easily fashioned into jewellery, tools, or cooking and storage containers. The use of copper increased about 5,500 years ago with the discovery that it could be easily mixed or alloyed with other metals such as tin, zinc or lead. These alloys produced bronze and brass with a variety of useful properties.

Robittybob1,

 

well we might still go with the double purpose thing or an evolving purpose thing.

 

Certain of the rings had taller center stones and later ones shorter. Perhaps the taller ones were to keep the stone throwers out of reach of leaping stag horns and later the deer were used up and there was more sheep and boar that didn't jump as high.

 

And I have not studied the difference in the symbols and reliefs between the first and the second...and the last, but it is possible that the idea was improved on, and upgrades were installed and the older one buried, as to not have the animals run into an unmanned trap. The ones with the fancy symbols may have been later on, generations later, as fancy stuff was added, like the cat predator looking down on the prey. And since they had this nice communal tool, it could have certainly doubled as a burial rite location, and tripled as a calendar.

 

Regards, TAR

Have you ever seen animals hunted in the manner you describe? Sounds barbaric even for 11,600 years ago.

A supernova is an exploded star. During a stars death throes, it steadily and exorably burns through all of the elements, beginning with the lightest, like helium and hydrogen, and then steadily moving through the periodic table toward the heavier elements. This of course includes those in the metals group. I believe the process ends with iron and lead.

 

So the star explodes and this is the supernova. Btw there have been ones so big they would have encompassed our entire solar system. The dust of these elements are tossed out into space. Till they become ensnared by gravitational pull of a star. Through a process called accretion they spin and orbit and get more compact and condensed till they are planets in the solar system of that staff that us how their Sun.

 

So that's off the top of my head and is greatly simplified but gives you the basic answer of how those metal ores get into our Earth.

OK that's how I think of it too. But the whole image is of crystals of copper ores not big slabs of native copper. Could the Earth's geological processes smelt the ore and make the copper metal pour down into a crack in the rock? (This would have to be a precise temperature range event, i.e. one just enough to keep the copper molten).

My problem is understanding how could the copper molecules coalesce into slabs of native copper?

When I read your post I thought you might have clicked on to something that leads from hunting to domestication and that was keeping the herd of wild animals as a herd and following that herd. But the important thing is to keep the herd grouped at all times, which would always be selecting for the tamest of the group (leading to domestication).

This same practice is still being practiced up near the Arctic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reindeer#Reindeer_and_humans

So the herded animals would benefit for the hunters would keep the wild animals of prey away from the herd so the young would survive. So that would mean the tamest of the wolves (leading to the domestic dog) would also benefit from a symbiotic relation with the hunters for they were useful in keeping other predators at bay and also for herding the semi-domesticated animals.

Just thoughts but seems a possible . How that would tie in with Gobekli Tepe? But the need for a precise determination of the calendar may have been essential to have resources put into this science project.

 

 

The stars.

Copper is copper wherever it’s found or created.

OK it formed in a star somewhere in the universe before the solar system formed, then it goes through a supernova, then what happens?

 

......

 

Ultimately, I think that it is better for people of different religions to presume that Abraham was not a real person, or at least to presume that such a person existed, and perhaps even had conversations with God, but that we really don't have sufficient evidence to determine just which tribal groups Abraham and God favored, or thought deserved particular tracts of land, etc. For example, let's all just throw our hands up in the air and say that scriptures conflict with regards to whether Isaac or Ishmael was the favored son, and that we ultimately don't have enough info to know. Similarly, taking a less literal/fundamentalistic approach leads, I suggest, to a less dogmatic and a more inclusive attitude towards people of other monotheistic religions (embracing the Abrahamic stories), thereby minimizing intolerance, hatred, and warfare.

 

 

 

 

As I read it Abraham didn't care which of his children got land. He was just happy to have any kids at all. He had married a wife who to all intends was barren, and Ishmael was born by a type of surrogacy but there seemed to be tension between the women and Sarah got her way and Hagar was sent packing. After Sarah died Abraham remarried and had a swag of other kids, all of which could have land and nations named after them.

It is via Moses we get the "Promised Lands" so I would be interested to explore the Muslim view on the actions of Moses.

I'm trying to analyse what you have just said. There seems to be the need to believe, but also some are atheistic. So do the atheists also feel they need to believe but resist this? I could see this happening. Some ancient saying within himself, "No. I will not assign this event to a God. I will find out the scientific reason for this".

This exploration has resulted into what we have today where the things to explain just seem to keep getting pushed back. Will we ever get to understand how the Universe started off in a highly ordered state? If there ever became just the one unanswered question, will this be the ultimate monotheism? No more need for tree gods, sun gods, rain gods, Moon gods, Mother goddesses etc but just one god that answers the final question.

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/barbara-hollingsworth/string-theory-co-founder-sub-atomic-particles-are-evidence-0

This topic is being discussed separately http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/95795-dr-michio-kaku-i-have-concluded-that-we-are-in-a-world-made-by-rules-created-by-an-intelligence/

I would be mightly surprised if this was the same God as was envisioned by Abraham.

So "native copper" is found on the Earth. So where does that come from? Meteorites or a process that occurred naturally that refined it?

http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2013/06/the-mystery-of-gobekli-tepe/

 

suggests that 100,000 bits of animal bones were found at the site, and the herds of wild sheep, wild boar and deer were wandering around the area

 

add to that the fact that the first domesticated sheep and domesticated pigs were traced to within miles of the place, my hypothesis aboaut the site having a utilitarian purpose related to the capture and/or killing of game animals is not far fetched at all.\

I read/heard somewhere else that these bones were mainly from the best parts of the animal. In other words I believe the slaughter dressing cooking occurred somewhere else and just the best bits were brought to the workforce at Gobekli Tepe.

1) somebody found metal meteorite, and found that it's very durable, so naturally started searching for more, from more reliable source (mines).

 

2) Pb has melting temperature 327.5 °C. Tin has 231.93 °C. So if somebody throw accidentally piece of rock which had Pb/Sn, it melted and they found it's pretty usable. Started searching for more such rocks.

Those metals alloy and form pewter. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pewter

 

Pewter was first used around the beginning of the Bronze Age in the Near East. The earliest piece of pewter found is from an Egyptian tomb from 1450 BC.[3]

shows a simple technique of producing copper from malachite. I could imagine this happening by accident and then the process being continually improved.

How did humans discover the use of metals?

I don't know but let's see if we can make sense out the clues discovered so far.

Stone knives and spears gradually turned into metal knives and metal spear heads.

I look around our lives and metals seem to be the thing that has made the biggest difference between us and the rest of the animal kingdom.

How did this start?

Strange; Oh, of course, there are millions of people who do say just that. Indeed, I think that the Catholic church has really been making an effort to take a more ecumenical by embracing other religions....When people get along there is nothing to fix....so I just focused on the fact that millions of monotheists often violently disagree and note that it is worthwhile trying to analyze the reason that they do, with a view to, perhaps, minimizing future conflict.

I've been trying to formulate a ecumenical solution.

Here is a rough attempt.

The Muslims and (Christians) must accept the OT prophets that allowed the Jews to claim the lands of Israel (not sure of the actual physical boundaries).

The Jews (and Muslims) must accept the NT and accept Jesus as the Messiah.

The Christians (and Jews) must accept Muhammad as a prophet and include the Koran as part of the Bible.

the inscribed knife was an analogy meant to show an item could have an artistic value, a symbolic value and a utilitarian value at the same time, indicating that we don't have to assume the site only had one purpose. Like modern day arenas for instance they might host a car show one night and a hockey game the next. For instance teenagers might use it at night to make out and watch the stars.

I like the thought of Gobekli Tepe being used by " ... at night to make out and watch the stars".

robittybob1,

 

 

 

.... like one could carve a symbol or a constellation on the handle of a knife.

 

Not impossible, if a hunting tool, that the best time for the hunt was a particular time of the year that could be determined from the position of the stars....for instance.

....

Regards, TAR

Were there such things as knives, as in metal knives? Humans had stone knives but inscribing them?? I've never heard of that before. When Gobekli Tepe was built it could be getting around to the time in history that metal might have been used for knives.

 

But there does seem to be symbols related to removed heads and death and such, where it is also possible that the site was used to present the dead to the universe for reabsorption, so to speak.

I think you are on to it there. Burial of the dead rituals seems to precede major technological advances.

 

It's not really a matter of either one believes a story in a given text word for word, or else there is nothing else that remains, but rather it is a matter of taking what is useful and glossing over the rest...which is what, I suggest, from bacteria to Buddha, all that anyone really ever does anyway.

 

@ Disarray - that is a very rare phrase "from bacteria to Buddha" and it is yours! Very true "taking what is useful and glossing over the rest". [The two finds of the phrase via Google probably have nothing to do with you.]

 

.....

I guess you could say that Abraham is a sort of Rorschaah test....where one sees what one wants to see, and what one sees tells you more about oneself than about Abraham.

 

From within your heart what do you see? Don't rely on the stories no more, they are pointless if he didn't even exist in the first place.

If you believe all these stories I will accept that is what you see, but if you don't what remains?

....

 

But I think fundamentally, people assume that there can only be one God. In terms of this thread, this is important, as one immediately is led to ask why people make such an assumption.

 

(And yes, of course, some monotheists condemn other monotheists.)

How can one sort this mess out? As soon as one religion says of another "their god is different than ours" that immediately implies there is at least two gods, so if they believe in one God and reject the other, can that religion rightly be called monotheistic?

If there was only one God how come we have these differences?

 

...

But yes, if one does a little research one can easily make of list of the "positive" things we could say about Abraham:

 

• Had a vision for the Oneness of God
• Condemned idolatry
• Helped his group get through a dark period
• Was obedient to God
• Had faith that God watches over on
• Had faith and trust in God
• Tried to abide by God's plan f
• Believed God favors the righteous
• Had strength of character and courage
• Was willing to be spiritual without letting go of reason
• Didn't lose confidence in the truth, etc.

....

 

 

 

 

Disarray - I'm wondering if you and I read the same story of Abraham (the basic story). I don't really see all these things there.

Would you be willing to show me how you come to each of these conclusions please?

I was more or less quoting from the Book of Hebrews (NT) and from memory where it describes Abraham as being justified by faith.

OK that too then is someone else's interpretation but one that is accepted as the Christian point of view.

Having such a long list (I'm again making presumptions) are you looking at it from a Jewish background point of view?

 

 

It wasn't clear if that is what you meant, or if you were suggesting that the US constitution only protected monotheistic beliefs.

Shall we all be a bit clearer in what we state or imply then. For even Disarray made assumptions about the Americans even though it wasn't something they had actually stated.

Can we make a declaration of where we stand so we don't make presumptions anymore?

 

Robbity You ask, "@Disarray - some part of that post sounded personal. Are you saying you believe in more than one God?"

No, I was not saying or implying that at all.

 

........

 

Did I not state that I noted that they assumed that people would worship one God, as I stated....not that they weren't free to worship. It was the assumption that adherents to polytheism were so deranged as to not be worth mentioning, as if America, was, by definition, monotheistic.

 

 

 

I'd say it would have broadened the scope of the study, and then the teachers would be lost in the diversity. Even if America (USA) is monotheistic does that imply all of the religions follow the same god? I went to a church once where the pastor lambasted the muslims as not following "our" god. Is it all to do with names and spellings etc?