---
title: "History of chemistry"
chunk: 1/20
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_chemistry"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:10:38.639255+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

The history of chemistry represents a time span from ancient history to the present. By 1000 BC, civilizations used technologies that would eventually form the basis of the various branches of chemistry. Examples include the discovery of fire, extracting metals from ores, making pottery and glazes, fermenting beer and wine, extracting chemicals from plants for medicine and perfume, rendering fat into soap, making glass,
and making alloys like bronze.
The protoscience of chemistry, alchemy, was unsuccessful in explaining the nature of matter and its transformations. However, by performing experiments and recording the results, alchemists set the stage for modern chemistry. The history of chemistry is intertwined with the history of thermodynamics, especially through the work of Willard Gibbs.

== Ancient history ==

=== Early humans ===

==== Fire ====

Arguably the first chemical reaction used in a controlled manner was fire. However, for millennia fire was seen simply as a mystical force that could transform one substance into another (burning wood, or boiling water) while producing heat and light. Fire affected many aspects of early societies. These ranged from the simplest facets of everyday life, such as cooking and habitat heating and lighting, to more advanced uses, such as making pottery and bricks and melting of metals to make tools. It was fire that led to the discovery of glass and the purification of metals; this was followed by the rise of metallurgy.

==== Paint ====

A 100,000-year-old ochre-processing workshop was found at Blombos Cave in South Africa. It indicates that early humans had an elementary knowledge of mineral processing. Paintings drawn by early humans consisting of early humans mixing animal blood with other liquids found on cave walls also indicate a small knowledge of chemistry.

=== Early metallurgy ===

The earliest recorded metal employed by humans seems to be gold, which can be found free or "native". Small amounts of natural gold have been found in Spanish caves used during the late Paleolithic period, around 40,000 BC. The earliest gold metallurgy is known from the Varna culture in Bulgaria, dating from c. 4600 BC.
Silver, copper, tin and meteoric iron can also be found native, allowing a limited amount of metalworking in ancient cultures. Egyptian weapons made from meteoric iron in about 3000 BC were highly prized as "daggers from Heaven".
During the early stages of metallurgy, methods of purification of metals were sought, and gold, known in ancient Egypt as early as 2900 BC, became a precious metal.

=== Bronze Age ===

==== Tin, lead, and copper smelting ====
Certain metals can be recovered from their ores by simply heating the rocks in a fire: notably tin, lead and (at a higher temperature) copper. This process is known as smelting. The first evidence of this extractive metallurgy dates from the 6th and 5th millennia BC, and was found in the archaeological sites of the Vinča culture, Majdanpek, Jarmovac and Pločnik in Serbia. The earliest copper smelting is found at the Belovode site; these examples include a copper axe from 5500 BC. Other signs of early metals are found from the third millennium BC in places like Palmela (Portugal), Los Millares (Spain), and Stonehenge (United Kingdom). However, as often happens in the study of prehistoric times, the ultimate beginnings cannot be clearly defined and new discoveries are ongoing.

==== Bronze ====
These first metals were single elements, or else combinations as naturally occurred. By combining copper and tin, a superior metal could be made, an alloy called bronze. This was a major technological shift that began the Bronze Age about 3500 BC. The Bronze Age was a period in human cultural development when the most advanced metalworking (at least in systematic and widespread use) included techniques for smelting copper and tin from naturally occurring outcroppings of copper ores, and then smelting those ores to cast bronze. These naturally occurring ores typically included arsenic as a common impurity. Copper/tin ores are rare, as reflected in the absence of tin bronzes in western Asia before 3000 BC.
After the Bronze Age, the history of metallurgy was marked by armies seeking better weaponry. States in Eurasia prospered when they made the superior alloys, which, in turn, made better armor and better weapons. 
The Chinese are credited with the first ever use of Chromium to prevent rusting. Modern archaeologists discovered that bronze-tipped crossbow bolts at the tomb of Qin Shi Huang showed no sign of corrosion after more than 2,000 years, because they had been coated in chromium. Chromium was not used anywhere else until the experiments of French pharmacist and chemist Louis Nicolas Vauquelin (1763–1829) in the late 1790s. In multiple Warring States period tombs, sharp swords and other weapons were also found to be coated with 10 to 15 micrometers of chromium oxide, which left them in pristine condition to this day.
Significant progress in metallurgy and alchemy was also made in ancient India.

=== Iron Age ===