7. Chalcolithic Age

 

 

Human being made first metal objects during 7000 years ago and the first metal they used was copper. Chalcolithic age or Copper age refers to a transitional period where early copper metallurgy appeared along with the widespread use of stone tools. Since copper was a soft metal, there was no way regarded superior to stone and thus both of the elements were used together in making of tools. Copper age was largely Neolithic in character but it is a phase of the Bronze age before it was discovered by adding tin with copper to form harder bronze. Hence Copper age was originally defined as the transition period between the Neolithic age and Bronze age. Since it was characterized by the metal tools, it has to be considered as a part of Bronze age rather than the Neolithic age.

With the end of Neolithic age, people were started using metals among which the copper was the first metal to use along with the stone and hence it was called Chalcolithic age which means stone-copper phase or age. The Chalcolithic period was began with the simple smelting of copper and copper predominated in metal working technology. The emergence of metallurgy may have first occurred by adding tin with copper to create a harder alloy called bronze,which ushered the rise of Bronze age in the sixth millennium. Hence the Chalcolithic age lasted for only almost a thousand years which began from about 6500 years ago and ended around 5500 years by overlapping with the early Bronze age.