"In the beginning, God created..."
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Ancient People Were No Dummies!Researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology have discovered that people in Mexico and Central America were making modern-type rubber 3,500 years ago. They were ahead of Charles Goodyear and his vulcanization process by thousands of years. In its natural state, gummy natural rubber latex is not of much use. Goodyear discovered that sulfur could be used to convert gummy natural latex into bouncy rubber. Sulfur causes cross-linking of polymer molecules in natural latex and it is cross-linking that gives modern rubber it's bounciness. Samples of 3,500-year-old rubber balls which had been preserved in a swamp were analyzed at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Results were published in the June 18th, issue of - Science (website). Rubber in the ancient balls was cross-linked just as is modern rubber. When sixteenth-century Spanish invaders came, they were amazed at the bounciness of the rubber balls made by the natives. Ancient rubber-making techniques had been passed down from generation to generation. Natives mixed juice from morning glory vines with natural latex, producing bouncy rubber. Now researchers have found that sulfur compounds in the juice of the morning glory vine can cause cross-linking, just as the modern vulcanization process does. One reason the sixteenth century Spanish invaders were so impressed with the rubber balls from Central America and Mexico was that European balls of the time were not nearly so bouncy. European balls of the time often consisted of pigskin filled with feathers, a far less bouncy item. |
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Contact: ddchittick@earthlink.net
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