this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2025
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Does Bronze count as a mineral for these purposes? If so did you know that the earliest form of bronze was arsenical and that large amount of copper deposits used during the copper and bronze age were contaminated by arsenic. This is probably what resulted in early blacksmiths being shamans, because they poisoned themselves while making their tools and went crazy.
I'll allow it, because A. interesting. and B. I can use my preplanned response:
Can the trap be a glacier? I want future archeologists to dissect my corpse much like how Ötzi who was probably a metal shaman based off of his tools and how far travelled he was. Though he was most likely a very early example, also he was most likely murdered.
Interesting exception: in North America around the Great Lakes, pure native copper was widely available at the surface due to the ice sheets exposing underground deposits when they advanced/retreated.
The Great lakes copper complex also used cold forging which avoids the issues of vaporization. Can't have your brain melted by vaporized materials if you never melt it down or cast it, though thats only possible due to the relative purity of the more veins.
Also the Great lakes copper complex most likely kicked off due to the collapse of trade routes making getting good quality stone for tools a right pain in the ass.
I thought mercury was more likely for causing those "issues."
While that may have been an issue for some the sheer amount of arsenic bronze artifacts kinda points in the direction of it being the arsenic. Mercury was more of an issue for later cultures who used it for makeup or other sundries, or alchemists and Medicare but they played around with questionable materials all the time.