Before the Iron Age, hunters in Greenland had a Meteorite Age, according to The Daily Mail. Prehistoric hunters used rocks that had fallen from space to make tools and weapons.
Danish archeologists claim to have evidence that communities in Greenland found a meteorite in ice over 1,200 years ago. Norse settlers from Iceland did not bring iron to Greenland until 300 years later.
The larger fallen rock is believed to have crash-landed on Cape York Peninsula in north west Greenland 10,000 years ago and split into eight pieces including what are known as: Ahighito, or the Tent (31 tons), The Man (22 tons), The Woman (2.5 tons) and The Dog (half a ton).
The "family" of rocks resides at the American Museum of Natural History, delivered by 19th century arctic explorers.
Evidence has been uncovered by researchers at the National Museum of suggesting native "Paleo-Eskimos" had been chipping away at the space rocks for hundreds of years.
"We knew the locations because what we have here are large scientific objects, but the story of the meteorites as the whole area's source of iron have sunk into oblivion," said Martin Appelt, an archaeologist from the National Museum of Denmark, according to The Daily Mail.
Appelt and his team found huge basalt stones that the prehistoric people would have used to break off massive chunks of stone at the sites of the meteor discoveries.
"They did a heck of a lot of hammering," said archeologist Jens Fog Jensen. "The blacksmiths would start by knocking off a small piece, thoroughly beating it flat and giving it a sharp edge, then hardening it further so that it could serve as an arrowhead or flensing knife."
Iron tools from the region have the same chemical signature (with traces of nickel) as the meteorites.
