Heavy metals are here treated as light metals and, in general, are not further considered. The heaviness of naturally occurring metals such as gold, copper, and iron may have been noticed in prehistory and, in light of their malleability, led to the first attempts to craft metal ornaments, tools, and weapons. All metals discovered from then until 1809 had relatively high densities; their heaviness was regarded as a singularly distinguishing criterion. From 1809 onwards, light metals such as sodium, potassium, and strontium were isolated. Their low densities challenged conventional wisdom and it was proposed to refer to them as "metalloids" (meaning "resembling
Group 7 element high melting and boiling points. Group 7 contains the two naturally occurring transition metals discovered last: technetium and rhenium. Manganese was discovered much earlier owing to its much larger abundance in nature. Rhenium was discovered when Masataka Ogawa found what he thought was element 43 in thorianite, but this was dismissed; recent studies by H. K. Yoshihara suggest that he discovered rhenium instead, a fact not realized at the time. Walter Noddack, Otto Berg, and Ida Tacke were the first to conclusively identify rhenium; it was thought they discovered element 43 as well, but as the experiment could not be