Science Archaeology This'funny-looking rock' holds 3,000 years of Iron Age secrets Experimenting with copper may have led to our eventual breakthroughs with making iron. Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. Around 1200 BCE, mankind began its shift away from bronze when a new metal showed its . Iron would eventually become king, but the metal's road to dominance is a bit muddled. Now, a new analysis of a 3,000-year-old smelting workshop in the Eastern European country of Georgia indicates that it was actually copper smelters experimenting with iron-rich rocks that may have sparked iron's rise.

Drone photographs taken of a 3,000-year-old "mega fortress" nestled deep in the Caucasus Mountains reveal the settlement is actually 40 times larger than archaeologists once thought. New aerial images of the Dmanisis Gora settlement, located in present-day Georgia, show a large land area well guarded by steep gorges and plastered with various stone structures and field systems. Though the structure's inner fortress has been well-documented for several years, new mapping made possible thanks to a simple hobbyist drone helped redraw the Bronze Age monument's boundaries. Researchers shared their findings this week in the journal Antiquity. The Dmanisis Gora is one of several documented fortresses that popped between the Middle East and the Eurasian Steppe sometime between 1,500 and 500 BCE.