Using Fire to Make Tools | The Great Human Race

On this journey, we need to carry grains, milk, water, processing number materials directly on a fire. So, I want to make some clay pots. Prior to the invention of pottery, our ancestors used organic containers such as animal stomachs and baskets to store and process food.

But now, with the invention of pottery, we had the ability to cook and process food directly on a fire. We're no longer stuck with just a few cooking options. We can now make soups, broths, and stews. We can throw a whole bunch of things together and make one meal in one pot. These pots really make all the difference for us.

My plan is to turn this copper into a knife, the first metal blade I've had. You dig into the coals and find the hottest spot to put this. By five thousand years ago, we were no longer reliant only on stone, wood, and bone for tool making. We began to shape metals into knives and spears, giving rise to the Bronze Age.

This is revolutionary for humans. This gave us strong tools, tools that we could use and reuse over and over again. You heat up a metal until it's red-hot. The copper becomes soft and more malleable, and then cool it down quickly. As soon as it's cool, that can be hammered.

Can tell it's thinner already. That's gonna be a great knife along this edge. So now, I've just got to put a handle on it. My next step is to raise this temperature slowly in these pots until they're at the point that they're fired and they've turned to ceramic. Once these pots are preheated, I'm spreading out the fire.

I place the pots on the ground in the middle and then build the fire back over top of the pots. I'm continuously adding wood to this fire until I'm convinced that these pots chemically changed from clay to ceramic.