Link:

Discovery of fire was discovery of powder and road to chemistry
(http://www.4to40.com/earth/science/index.asp?article=earth_science_fire)
http://www.ishikawa-maibun.or.jp/taiken/hiokosi/hiokosi_houhou.htm

"Discovery of fire was a start to civilization of the human". That is a common view. I want to think about the contents a little more in detail from the stand point of powder technology. That was an encounter for powder and chemistry with the human. There are two different type of fire making methd. One is rub a tree and a tree together. Another is strike on the sharp edge of stone (flint) with steel or iron pyrite, and the spark was catch on a some materials, which easy to burn. I think there is big difference between them. The technical nature of development stage was a greate gap. Ignition by friction of a tree and a tree was a imitation of nature, but I paid attention to powder of a dry tree to generate by the process, and there was a beginning to It is the discovery that it can change to flame if it loses fire of striking sparks to the powder. It was great progress. It was the advanced technology that grew up in accumulation of the making of stone implement more than 1000000 years. This dry powder is a assistant ignition materials tinder . ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinder)：From Old English tynder, easily combustible material used for starting a fire. French Amadou. Old man let the material of the powder change and selected firestone, and the technology of striking sparks developed. However, special materials needed the striking sparks ignition. When there was not steel, iron pyrite was used. In Iron Age, steel was used. We can find many tool for relics of strike fire, which were personal effect of noble personages from an old burial mound. The continent origin are excavated since the ancient times.

The Iceman which the human body of the Stone Age before 5000 years froze up to Alpine ice, and it was saved, and was discovered became a topic (TIME, October 26, 1992 ) (written by Jaroff,L).
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/icemummies/iceman.html He had a knife of making a thing of copper instead of bronze, and there was not the firestone in the belonging, but there was the crater with the iron pyrites which became powder by use. He brought the bag which let the fire that he started stand long use in a state of live charcoal with you. More interestingly the crater was a special mushroom of potassium rich . It was not gun powder yet, but the potassium was right a road to gunpowder. It is discovery of fireworks and technical accumulation to produce complicated technical development to invention of gunpowder last. It is reasonable to associate gunpowder with powder.

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