[brraverishhh]

The evidence comes from strings of iron beads which were excavated in 1911 at the Gerzeh cemetery, about 44 miles south of Cairo.

Dating from 3350 to 3600 BC, thousands of years before Egypt’s Iron Age, the necklace bead analyzed was originally assumed to be from a meteorite owing to its composition of nickel-rich iron. But this hypothesis was challenged in the 1980s when academics proposed that much of the early worldwide examples of iron use originally thought to be of meteorite-origin were actually early smelting attempts.

[Fegasderty]

Was that ever a question? I can't imagine there has ever been a time people weren't scooping up meteorite iron and saying "oh hey, this looks cool".

I feel like I wouldn't be super weirded out if someone got a video of a chimp finding some bits of metal on the ground and carrying it around for a while out of interest.

[brraverishhh]

Until evidence is found, it should always be questioned.

[softy54534]

so how do they make heat hot enough to manipulate iron

[tgs]

You can manipulate iron without heat. You can bend small enough pieces with your hands and bigger pieces with hammers or even just rocks. you can even heat it and make it easier to work without being able to fully heat it to melting.