The first recorded use of charcoal is as a pigment in cave paintings which are 34,000 years old. Copper was first smelted 7,500 years ago and charcoal was used in increasing amounts once its important as a metal working fuel was discovered from 2000BC onwards, the periods known as the Bronze age and the Iron age. The first evidence of organised production of charcoal in coppiced woodland traces back to around about 4000BC so the organised production of charcoal pre-dates organised production of food on farms. At the end of the first millenium AD charcoal lots it's pre-eminence as the fuel of industry being replaced by fossil fuels however charcoal production had a renaissance in the industrial age because charcoal, combined with sulphur (obtained from natural deposits) and saltpetre (extracted from human urine, collected in barrels in inns) in exactly the right proportions became gun-powder. Much charcoal for BBQ use is made in cylindrical kilns, in much the same way as it was seven thousand years ago, however some larger scale charcoal production occurs in larger kilns called retort kilns, which even so are stacked and lit in much the same way as they always have been. A major chore of traditional charcoal making is the unloading of the traditional cylindrical kiln. The only way to unload a cooled charcoal kiln is to get down and dirty and to get fully into the kiln and to unpack the burnt charcoal by hand, a hugely dirty and dusty job. In the seventeenth century such was the demand for charcoal that teams of men lived for months on end in coppiced woodland stacking and unloading the kilns. Their lungs must have suffered terribly from the charcoal dust ant they must have been constantly dirty from the charcoal dust, however there was always plenty of lovely char-grilled food to enjoy at the end of the working day! Retort kilns nowadays produce charcoal quicker and facilitate much easier loading and unpacking. Charcoal when removed from the kiln consists of lumpwood pieces which can be used directly as a fuel and smaller particles called fines which can be used packed with a binder in charcoal briquettes or as a mulch on gardens.

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