Inventions & Discoveries · Tools and materials

Copper smelting

c. 5000 BCE

Copper smelting is the production of copper from its ores at high temperature; the world's oldest securely dated evidence for it, from c. 5000 BCE, was found at Belovode on Rudnik mountain in Serbia. The Chalcolithic, or Copper Age, between the Neolithic and the Bronze Age, was characterised by the increasing use of smelted copper, although stone tools still predominated. Andean civilisations appear to have invented copper smelting independently, and it developed independently in the Aïr Mountains of Niger between 3000 and 2500 BCE.

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First known: c. 5000 BCE
Where: Belovode, Serbia

Also arose independentlythe Andes; the Aïr Mountains, Niger (3000–2500 BCE)

NoteA copper axe from Prokuplje in Serbia may be older, c. 5500 BCE, and smelting may have begun separately in Asia and in Europe.

Built onControl of firec. 1 million years ago

Led toBronzec. 4650 BCE The first stone pyramid27th century BCE Iron smeltingc. 2500 BCE Coinagelate 7th century BCE

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