The discovery of bronze (an alloy of copper with arsenic or tin) enabled people to create metal objects which were harder and more durable than previously possible. Bronze tools, weapons, armor, and building materials such as decorative tiles were harder and more durable than their stone and copper (" Chalcolithic ") predecessors. Initially, bronze was made of copper and arsenic (forming arsenic bronze) by smelting naturally or artificially mixed ores of copper and arsenic. The earliest artifacts so far known come from the Iranian plateau in the fifth millennium BCE. It was only later that tin was used, becoming the major non-copper ingredient of bronze in the late third millennium BCE. Pure tin itself was first isolated in 1800 BCE by Chinese and Japanese metalworkers.