#249 When did people start using coal?

I learned this today. There is some evidence that paleolithic people were the first to use coal.

Humans have been using fire since about 400,000 years ago. Evidence for this was found in Qesem Cave in Israel. Archeologists discovered large quantities of burned bone and moderately heated soil lumps. A 300,000-year-old hearth was also found. These are the earliest signs that Homo sapiens were able to use fire. This is very important because it was a huge technological advance and advantage. It gave early humans a source of warmth and light, it gave them protection from predators at night, a way to make better hunting tools, and a method for cooking food. It is also possible that being able to control fire brought humans down from the trees and enabled them to sleep on the ground. The main reason for sleeping in trees, is for protection. If a group of Homo sapiens can use a large fire to keep predators away, they can sleep around it on the ground.

However, all of these fires that there is evidence for were wood burning fires. The only evidence for coal-based fires are found in two sites in France: Les Canalettes and Les Usclades. At these paleolithic sites, archaeologists thought that they had just found more charcoal, but analysis showed it to be a type of coal called lignite. Lignite is often called “brown coal”. It is softer than other types of coal and is formed from compressed peat. At the two sites in France, paleolithic people had burned this coal in a hearth. The lignite came from a coal outcrop that was about 15 km away from the site where it was found. It would have been exposed on the ground and they probably didn’t mine for it. There are no other real examples of paleolithic people using coal. It was probably used at this location because the ice age made wood scarce.

Coal began to be used more frequently in the later Stone Age. Ancient people in China started using coal about 6000 years ago. They collected coal that was on the surface. In the 3^rd century BC, the Chinese started burning coal for heat. There was not a great demand for it because even though it burns hotter than wood it is less common. In the 1^st century BC, coal was used for metalworking in China because it reaches higher temperatures than wood can. Being able to work metal was an advantage for early Chine.

There are ancient coal pits in other parts of the world as well. There are some that have Stone Age flint arrows stuck in them in parts of England. The Romans started to extract coal after they arrived in Britain and from Northern Europe. They used it for heating and to heat the water they used in their bath houses. They also used it to smelt iron, but they didn’t mine it extensively and charcoal was far more common.

After the Romans left Britain, coal was barely used there for about 700 years. It started to pick up again in the 12^th century when artisans discovered how useful it was. Coal smoke pollution became such a problem in London that a proclamation was issued in the name of the King in 1306 requesting artisans to go back to the old ways of burning wood and charcoal.

All of this coal came from coal that was already on the surface or from shallow trench mines. The problem with most mines was that the deeper they went, the more likely they were to flood.

The first coal mine was opened by Sir George Bruce in Scotland in 1575. Wood was slowly running out in Britain and people were starting to use more and more coal. Bruce dug a shaft that was 12.2 m deep. He then dug two other shafts to drain the water and provide ventilation to the first shaft.

There were a few advances in the technology of mining over the next few hundred years. Probably the biggest was the chain pump. This was a series of circular discs that were attached to a chain. A waterwheel turns the chain, and the discs scoop up the water and carry it out of the mine. The biggest advances started to take off at the end of the 18^th century. The UK had a large amount of coal and it had also become a center of innovation. These things, plus many other reasons, sparked the industrial revolution. The need for coal became much greater and many more mines were sunk to supply the machines. The coal pollution in London became so bad that the buildings were black, people coughed up coal dust, and there was a black fog in the air. The word smog was invented for it. Smoke + fog.

These days, technology has increased to the point where the deepest coal mine goes 1.5 km down into the earth. About 8 billion tons of coal are dug up each year. However, luckily, this number is starting to come down. Coal production peaked in 2013 and will continue to decline as it is slowly replaced by renewable energies.

So, coal was first used by paleolithic humans, but it was far less common than wood. Coal only really took off as the main fuel source when the wood ran out. And this is what I learned today.

Photo by Pixabay: https://www.pexels.com/photo/black-close-up-coal-dark-46801/

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_coal_mining

https://www.okd.cz/en/coal-mining/the-history-of-coal-mining

https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/coal

https://www.dyballassociates.co.uk/a-brief-history-of-energy-coal

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0305440396900485

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352409X20302595

https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/lignite

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chain_pump

https://www.history.com/news/human-ancestors-tamed-fire-earlier-than-thought

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qesem_cave