In general, prehistoric extraction of metals, particularly copper, involved two fundamental stages: first, the smelting of copper ore at temperatures exceeding 700 °C is needed to separate the gangue from the copper; second, melting the copper, which requires temperatures exceeding its melting point of 1080 °C. Given the available technology at the time, accomplishing these extreme temperatures posed a significant challenge. Early smelters developed ways to effectively increase smelting temperatures by feeding the fire with forced flows of oxygen.
Copper extraction in particular is of great interest in archeometallurgical studies since it dominated other metals in Mesopotamia from the early Chalcolithic until the mid-to-late sixth century BC. There is a lack of consensus among archaeometallurgists on the origin of non-ferrous extractive metallurgy. Some scholars believe that extractive metallurgy may have been simultaneously or independently discovered in several parts of the world. The earliest known use of pyrometallurgical extraction of copper occurred in Belovode, eastern Serbia, from the late sixth to early fifth millennium BC. However, there is also evidence of copper smelting in Tal-i-Iblis, southeastern Iran, which dates back to around the same period. During this period, copper smelters used large in-grown pits filled with coal, or crucibles to extract copper, but by the fourth millennium BC this practice had begun to phase out in favor of the smelting furnace, which had a larger production capacity. From the third millennium onward, the invention of the reusable smelting furnace was crucial to the success of large-scale copper production and the robust expansion of the copper trade through the Bronze Age.
The earliest silver objects began appearing in the late fourth millennium BC in Anatolia, Turkey. Prehistoric silver extraction is strongly associated with the extraction of the less valuable metal, lead; although evidence of lead extraction technology predates silver by at least 3 millennia. Silver and lead extractions are also associated because the argentiferous (silver-bearing) ores used in the process often contains both elements.
In general, prehistoric silver recovery was broken down into three phases: First, the silver-lead ore is roasted to separate the silver and lead from the gangue. The metals are then melted at high temperature ( greater than 1100 °C) in the crucible while air is blown over the molten metal (cupellation). Finally, lead is oxidized to form lead monoxide (PbO) or is absorbed into the walls of the crucible, leaving the refined silver behind.
The silver-lead cupellation method was first used in Mesopotamia between 4000 and 3500 BC. Silver artifacts, dating around 3600 BC, were discovered in Naqada, Egypt. Some of these cast silver artifacts contained less than 0.5% lead, which strongly indicates cupellation.