The Origins of Lime

Lime is used in the ancient world only where you can't do it with something else and much of the world built completely without it. lime kilns were run on nut husks because they are very oily and therefore they burn very hot as well as having a huge surface area to volume ratio. The problem with plant matter that burns very hot is that it burns very fast so you're shoveling it in all the time and shoveling it back out as ash  as a very intense process. I don't think anyone knows who first came up with lime but it could well be that somebody had a fireplaceyou often use stone in conjunction with fireplaces, he says.