1. General significance
The making of charcoal from wood at a charcoal-burning, carbonization or pyrolysis site by means of controlled heating or burning with a regulated supply of air was already known in the high cultures of antiquity. With the spread of work with ore and metal working in the Bronze and Iron Ages charcoal became the most important fuel (cf. Fuels and illuminants) and retained this position until the middle of the 19th …