I was just wondering…what’s the most primitive method known for making Charcoal? Or perhaps I should say “Oldest known.”
Thanks for your patience,
Ranchoth
(They thought I was MAD for writing a Daria/Riverworld crossover fanfic! And they…sigh they were probably right, weren’t they?)
Charcoal making was done by a few different, but similar methods in the ancient times. Since your ultimate goal is to reduce the volatile matter content and moisture content of the wood/combustible, you essentially must have combustion or heat hot enough to burn or drive off the volatiles (and evaporate some moisture) but without burning much of the fixed carbon.
One method to do it is to create a “pyramid” of wood, sort of like a cone, and ignite a small fire under it. It heats and chars the wood in this fashion. Later on, people started cutting turf and layering this on top of the wood, which helped with the oxygen starvation and also kept the wood from going past char.
A quick web search shows that peat was sometimes used in places such as Dartmoor and Ireland, in which the peat was piled or layered to form a “clamp”, and a fire lit under it.