Materials · c. 5,000 BCE

Copper smelting

Heat and charcoal pull metal out of rock.

Smelting slag at Belovode, Serbia, dates to about 5000 BCE. Extracting metal from ore, not just finding it, began the Copper Age and all later metallurgy.

See it in the living tree Wikipedia

Arcs above join it to what it stood on, arcs below to what it led to. The bar places this stretch on the tree's whole timeline.

What it built on 3

Charcoal making 6000 BCE
Native copper working 8500 BCE
Pottery 18k BCE

What it led to 5

Lost-wax casting 4700 BCE
Bronze 4650 BCE
The wheel 3500 BCE
Great Pyramid of Giza 2560 BCE
Iron smelting (bloomery) 2000 BCE

Related measurements

The dashed line marks when it first worked.

World GDP over a million years Latest: 41k billion 1990 international $ (2000) Source: DeLong 1998, Estimating World GDP, One Million B.C. - Present; Wikipedia: Gross world product (DeLong table, cross-check)

World population over a million years Latest: 6.27k million people (2000) Source: DeLong 1998, table 'Total World Population' (Kremer series); Kremer 1993, Population Growth and Technological Change: One Million B.C. to 1990, QJE 108(3)