India, Nov. 20 -- Studying how humans produced such objects is challenging because little evidence still exists, and artifacts that have survived are carefully guarded and preserved.
In apaper published inPLOS One, MIT researchers demonstrated a new approach to uncovering details of some of the earliest metallurgical processes. They studied 5,000-year-old slag waste, a byproduct of smelting ore, using techniques including X-ray computed tomography, also known as CT scanning. In their paper, they show how this noninvasive imaging technique, which has primarily been used in the medical field, can reveal fine details about structures within the pieces of ancient slag.
"Even though slag might not give us the complete picture, it tells stories...