Homestead mailing list

[Clansgian AT wmconnect.com]

> When someone first learned to work metal that technology 
> put the flint knappers out of business, metal tools were just a first step.
> 

A skilled flint knapper made a leaf point in about an hour.  I saw this 
demonstrated once.  In a great many areas flint (or chert, or obsidian, etc) 
is 
quite common.  

When 'technology' went to working metal, and especially ferrous metals, a 
smithy could not make an implement in an hour.  It took making charcoal, 
obtaining ore (most often from bog ore), smelting, refining, and then working 
the 
metal to temper it.  It took a great deal of resources (trees) to do this.  
It 
wasn't just a matter of "now we're smarter with this technology", it was a 
willingness to depend on a very labor and resource intensive process.

Thus metal was scarce and expensive.  Until the industrial revolution, metal 
was only used (by the common folk) when absolutely necessary.  The ancient 
Egyptians had metal and eventually iron but still tipped their arrows with 
flint. 
 Shovels, rakes, and all such implements were made entirely of wood until 
relatively recent times.

The amount of metal available was dependent on the number of trees to be had 
to be made into charcoal.  That changed with the advent of fossil fuel use.  
The fact that metal (and plastic) are common, cheap, and readily available 
for 
any and all purposes is a direct fucntion of fossil fuels.  It isn't a small 
step in a long line of technology, we are not standing on the shoulders of a 
giant more than 100 years old, we are not riding a tiger that goes back more 
than a dozen generations.  Compared to the level of fossil fuel based 
technology 
today, just a very little while ago in human history we were standing on the 
shoulders of a midget and riding a chihuahua.