Is this actually true? Because all the YouTube videos I've seen of people trying to make iron in primitive ways have the issue of too much carbon in the iron. This causes the iron to be very brittle and hard to work. The trick about making good steel is to get just the right amount of carbon.

[–] fossilesque@mander.xyz 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/248980640_Role_the_Bones_-_from_Iron_to_Steel

[–] Thorry84@feddit.nl 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

You know you are in for a good time when you get to the chapter called "Sexual connotations".

I'm not an expert on the field, so I've read the paper, but am not qualified to draw conclusions from it. But as I read it, the focus is more on the role of ritual and religion in the making of the iron. And the transfer of knowledge through this process and hypothesize the addition of the burning of bone is actually beneficial.

However they do not approach this from a material technology standpoint. So I would love for someone with knowledge on this point to chime in. It's very interesting if the people back in the day knew how to make low carbon iron and the little bit of carbon they did add came from the burning of the bones. But as I see it the burning of the bones is more a ritual kind of thing and getting all of the carbon out of the iron is the harder thing to do, not putting the carbon in.

[–] entwine413@lemm.ee 1 points 2 months ago

Bone char isn't super high carbon, so it's possible that either the calcium phosphate or calcium carbonate is playing a roll.

But honestly, you're probably not getting very much of it mixed in from primitive smelting or forging methods.