When man first populated the Earth he had no tools. But man, being as ingenious as he was, and having a more developed brain than the animals, decided that he could use the things around him to make his life better. He looked around and found caves to live in that sheltered him from the cold winds and wet rains. He found sticks that he could use as clubs and he found rocks that he could fasten to those sticks to make his clubs more deadly. To tie the rocks to the sticks he used vines at first. As time went by he discovered that he could take some sticks, the long ones, and sharpen them and then they could be used to kill animals without having to get as close to the animal. He even found that you could throw these sharpened sticks allowing you to stand even further away from the animals. But man didn't stop there. He discovered fire and now discovered that he could cook his meat and harden his spears by burning the tips. He also found that he could make glue from some parts of the animals and fasten the rocks to his sticks with glue and animal sinew. He also found that he could chip rocks making them sharp and useful for skinning animals and deadly as points for spears. He now had rock 'knives' he could carry on his person. It is said that the bow and arrow was invented in Neolithic times. Again the range from the animal to be hunted was increased, increasing the safety factor for the hunter.

All of these weapons were wondrous for their time but weapons really came of age with the discovery of metal. No one knows when or how metal was first discovered. Anatolia may be the area where metal was first discovered and the Hittites may have taken it to the next step. Archeologists have uncovered early Hittite armor, weapons, pins, tools, wagons, seals and other items. Can you imagine what it must have been like when your ancient army with its stone and wooden weapons met up with an army equipped with metal weapons. Their swords would just chop through you wooden clubs. It is almost certain that the first metal used was bronze, but this can not be said with 100% certainty. The early Egyptians were using copper that was beaten with hammers to give it more strength. Later on the Egyptians switched to iron weapons. Here is the problem, some Archeologists think that copper might have been used as far back as 8000 BC, they cite the ancient copper mines on Cyprus that supplied Phoenicia, Greece and Rome.

In 1982 an iron sword with a bronze scabbard was found in England. It was extremely well preserved. It has been dated to the first century BC. The blade is 2 1/2 inches wide and 28 inches long. An iron dagger that dated back to 400 BC was also found in England along with a bronze shield that has been dated back to 1200 BC. It is thought that iron production began around 2000 BC in the area around China and India, but this may be proven wrong by later finds. It is suggested that it may have taken 900 years for iron technology to have reached the middle east and as long as 1900 years to reach Britain. This seems to be at odds with the discovery of the iron dagger in Britain, of course some one could have been carrying a 400 year old dagger at the time. It is interesting to look at the Ancient Greek Armor of King Philip the father of Alexander the Great. His grave was discovered and its contents. along with the grave. are a museum. You can see that much of the armor and weapons are metal. To view the armor go to http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/war/Armor.htm You can copy this address by highlighting it and using copy from the edit menu and then paste it into your browser's address bar. I can't link to this address because it would be a copyright violation.

The Romans, the greatest civil builders in history, took iron weapons and tools a step further. Their iron work was so sophisticated that they created surgical tools made of metal. Some of the surgical tools used today still use similar designs. Outside of farming, the largest Roman industry was mining. This was where all the ore came from for metal weapons and tools. While brass was known about for some time, it was not in popular usage until the time of Augustus in Imperial Rome. Weapons were now all iron and other metals such as Bronze, Copper and Brass were used for decorative purposes, architecture and the production of coins. Brass is nothing more than copper with zinc added. Here is an interesting fact, the first coins were minted in Turkey.

Will we continue to refine metals to produce more and more exotic items or will some other material replace metal? Already we have seen the use of plastics replace many metal products. A lot of devices for the home that were metal are now plastic such as can openers and the like, along with some auto parts, camera cases, guns and many other items. But will plastic be the ultimate material or will that too be replaced with some exotic material produced in the lab from carbon buckyballs or nanotubes? Only time will tell. Will some scientist referring to our era several thousand years from now refer to our time as the plastic age?