Metalworking in a blind society
Aug. 7th, 2011 07:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
steorran_woruldeIn my first major post about my all-blind society, I talked about possibilities for metalworking, and decided that bronzeworking seemed plausible but ironworking didn't really. For that, though, I was only really thinking about the last stage of the metallurgy process - how you turn bronze or iron into a finished object. To really make use of metal, you need more than that - you have to get the metal in the first place.
There are two ways you can get metal. You can find it in a native form (pure metal or alloyed with another metal), or you can smelt it out of ore.
Ores are much more abundant than native metal, and the range of metals which occur native is limited. According to Wikipedia, the only metals that occur natively in substantial quantities are gold, silver, copper, and the platinum group metals; others occur natively in small flakes. Also, alloys of iron and nickel occur naturally in iron meteorites. There are also natural alloys of the gold/silver/copper group metals - electrum (gold/silver) is famous for being one of the first metals employed in coinage.
Historically, metalworking with native metal often preceded metal production from ores. So some of the earliest metalworking is with native gold, native copper, and meteoric iron. I think the primary use of gold was for jewelry, since it's too soft to be much use for tools. Copper was used both for jewelry and for tools. There were cultures in North America which had access to substantial amounts of native copper and used it considerably; they had no need of developing copper smelting since they had sufficient native copper. Meteoric iron was also used for jewelry and tools, and there are places where large iron meteorites were used as ongoing sources of iron - for instance, the Cape York meteorite of Greenland. (Greenland also has the only known major source of native non-meteoric iron on earth, and it was also used by Greenlandic Inuit.)
In the first stages of metalworking, these native metals were largely worked cold; copper could be annealed by heating it well short of its melting point, which would make it less brittle and when it cooled it could be hammered more effectively, and the process could be repeated.
If your metal source is native metal, access to it is probably fairly limited, unless you have a large iron meteorite around. And the range of metals which you have is limited. And although a lot of early metalworking with native metal was cold-working, there's no reason in principle that you couldn't melt and cast native copper. If you're only using native metal, you can't make bronze, because bronze requires addition of another metal such as tin that isn't really found in native format.
If your metal source is native metal, you need to be able to find it, and if it occurs only in small bits, you need to separate it from surrounding material.
If your metal source is ore, you need to be able to identify appropriate ores, and you need to be able to smelt them.
The part that I'm worried about for my blind society is finding/identifying the appropriate materials. I think if you were given a piece of native metal and a piece of ore, it'd be a lot easier to identify the piece of metal based on nonvisual properties than to identify the ore. I'm not very familiar with different minerals, so I don't really know how ores could be recognized without looking at them. I don't know how likely you would be to happen across the appropriate native metals, though. I know native copper used to be quite common but is now largely depleted. How common was common? Meteoric iron has the advantage that it at least can come in really large quantities, so you only need to know where the meteorite is, and you can keep coming back to it for more.
When it comes to ores of particular metals, iron ore is very abundant, and copper ore is not rare. However, thinking about bronze production, tin ore is fairly rare, and limited to particular locations on earth. This means that in the Bronze Age, there were extensive trading networks supplying tin to places that lacked it. Since my blind society is located on an isolated island which does not have contact with the off-island world, it's likely that they wouldn't have access to tin, though it's possible that they could just be lucky, and the island could have both tin and copper ores available, like Devon and Cornwall in Britain.
So, considerations of potential metals for use:
Iron:
Ore is abundant, but possibly hard to identify.
Blacksmithing iron is probably not plausible without vision - requires precise aim at objects too hot to touch.
Needs extremely hot temperatures for casting - likely not plausible.
Meteoric iron is easily findable if you're lucky enough to have a good large meteorite around.
Meteoric iron can to some degree be worked cold. Hitting cold objects that you can feel ahead of time to get a spatial model seems more plausible than blacksmithing.
Copper:
Ore is reasonably common, but possibly hard to identify.
Native copper does occur, and is probably easy to recognize, but possibly hard to find.
Can be cast at reasonably accessible temperatures - a technique that seems plausible without vision.
Can also be worked cold, through hammering and annealing.
Not very strong when not alloyed to make bronze, but still strong enough to be useful for tool-making.
Bronze:
Needs tin (or some other metals, but tin is preferable) as well as copper.
Tin ore is not very common, and also may be hard to identify.
Stronger than copper.
Gold, silver, electrum:
May be around in native format, but what would you use them for if you weren't using them for their appearance in decorative objects?
Lead:
I'm kind of ignoring it, but maybe I shouldn't. It needs ore identification, though, since it doesn't often occur native. It's relatively easy to extract. It melts at a rather low temperature, which is convenient. Of course it creates health issues, which may not be recognized.
I think I am going to say that they do not have access to tin, and therefore do not have bronze. And I don't think they make use of ores. However, I think I will say that they have a large iron meteorite, which they use for cold-worked tools. And there is native copper around, if they can find it; they probably find at least some of it, though I'm not sure in how great of quantities. They likely cast copper as well as cold-work it. But they likely still use stone tools as well.
It may be that this is only in the early period of their society, and that at some point they do figure out how to identify and smelt ores. I think they still won't have access to tin, though.
There are two ways you can get metal. You can find it in a native form (pure metal or alloyed with another metal), or you can smelt it out of ore.
Ores are much more abundant than native metal, and the range of metals which occur native is limited. According to Wikipedia, the only metals that occur natively in substantial quantities are gold, silver, copper, and the platinum group metals; others occur natively in small flakes. Also, alloys of iron and nickel occur naturally in iron meteorites. There are also natural alloys of the gold/silver/copper group metals - electrum (gold/silver) is famous for being one of the first metals employed in coinage.
Historically, metalworking with native metal often preceded metal production from ores. So some of the earliest metalworking is with native gold, native copper, and meteoric iron. I think the primary use of gold was for jewelry, since it's too soft to be much use for tools. Copper was used both for jewelry and for tools. There were cultures in North America which had access to substantial amounts of native copper and used it considerably; they had no need of developing copper smelting since they had sufficient native copper. Meteoric iron was also used for jewelry and tools, and there are places where large iron meteorites were used as ongoing sources of iron - for instance, the Cape York meteorite of Greenland. (Greenland also has the only known major source of native non-meteoric iron on earth, and it was also used by Greenlandic Inuit.)
In the first stages of metalworking, these native metals were largely worked cold; copper could be annealed by heating it well short of its melting point, which would make it less brittle and when it cooled it could be hammered more effectively, and the process could be repeated.
If your metal source is native metal, access to it is probably fairly limited, unless you have a large iron meteorite around. And the range of metals which you have is limited. And although a lot of early metalworking with native metal was cold-working, there's no reason in principle that you couldn't melt and cast native copper. If you're only using native metal, you can't make bronze, because bronze requires addition of another metal such as tin that isn't really found in native format.
If your metal source is native metal, you need to be able to find it, and if it occurs only in small bits, you need to separate it from surrounding material.
If your metal source is ore, you need to be able to identify appropriate ores, and you need to be able to smelt them.
The part that I'm worried about for my blind society is finding/identifying the appropriate materials. I think if you were given a piece of native metal and a piece of ore, it'd be a lot easier to identify the piece of metal based on nonvisual properties than to identify the ore. I'm not very familiar with different minerals, so I don't really know how ores could be recognized without looking at them. I don't know how likely you would be to happen across the appropriate native metals, though. I know native copper used to be quite common but is now largely depleted. How common was common? Meteoric iron has the advantage that it at least can come in really large quantities, so you only need to know where the meteorite is, and you can keep coming back to it for more.
When it comes to ores of particular metals, iron ore is very abundant, and copper ore is not rare. However, thinking about bronze production, tin ore is fairly rare, and limited to particular locations on earth. This means that in the Bronze Age, there were extensive trading networks supplying tin to places that lacked it. Since my blind society is located on an isolated island which does not have contact with the off-island world, it's likely that they wouldn't have access to tin, though it's possible that they could just be lucky, and the island could have both tin and copper ores available, like Devon and Cornwall in Britain.
So, considerations of potential metals for use:
Iron:
Ore is abundant, but possibly hard to identify.
Blacksmithing iron is probably not plausible without vision - requires precise aim at objects too hot to touch.
Needs extremely hot temperatures for casting - likely not plausible.
Meteoric iron is easily findable if you're lucky enough to have a good large meteorite around.
Meteoric iron can to some degree be worked cold. Hitting cold objects that you can feel ahead of time to get a spatial model seems more plausible than blacksmithing.
Copper:
Ore is reasonably common, but possibly hard to identify.
Native copper does occur, and is probably easy to recognize, but possibly hard to find.
Can be cast at reasonably accessible temperatures - a technique that seems plausible without vision.
Can also be worked cold, through hammering and annealing.
Not very strong when not alloyed to make bronze, but still strong enough to be useful for tool-making.
Bronze:
Needs tin (or some other metals, but tin is preferable) as well as copper.
Tin ore is not very common, and also may be hard to identify.
Stronger than copper.
Gold, silver, electrum:
May be around in native format, but what would you use them for if you weren't using them for their appearance in decorative objects?
Lead:
I'm kind of ignoring it, but maybe I shouldn't. It needs ore identification, though, since it doesn't often occur native. It's relatively easy to extract. It melts at a rather low temperature, which is convenient. Of course it creates health issues, which may not be recognized.
I think I am going to say that they do not have access to tin, and therefore do not have bronze. And I don't think they make use of ores. However, I think I will say that they have a large iron meteorite, which they use for cold-worked tools. And there is native copper around, if they can find it; they probably find at least some of it, though I'm not sure in how great of quantities. They likely cast copper as well as cold-work it. But they likely still use stone tools as well.
It may be that this is only in the early period of their society, and that at some point they do figure out how to identify and smelt ores. I think they still won't have access to tin, though.
no subject
Date: 2011-08-08 11:19 am (UTC)There seems to be something missing; I was expecting "the only metals that occur natively in substantial quantities are A, B, and C".
If your metal source is native metal, you need to be able to find it, and if it occurs only in small bits, you need to separate it from surrounding material.
Um, same if it occurs only in huge lumps, no?
I'm imagining an iron meteorite is essentially a huge ball of iron - how do you get bits of it out? You can't just dig at it with a spade, can you, or hammer bits out with a pickaxe?
no subject
Date: 2011-08-08 12:23 pm (UTC)That's true of course, but it's a different angle than I was thinking of things from, though I probably didn't express myself very clearly. I was thinking more of issues of discriminating wanted from unwanted and separating the wanted metal from the unwanted rock. In the case of a large iron meteorite, it's all the material you want, you just need to get an appropriate-sized chunk. (Though I imagine there are likely still some smaller impurities that have to be removed.)
(And I think bits are removed from an iron meteorite by hammering, probably with stone. But my knowledge of working with meteoric iron is still very limited.)