How a 3000-year-old copper smelting site could be key to understanding the origins of iron
Research from Cranfield University sheds new light onto the transition from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age, showing how experimentation with iron-rich rocks by copper smelters may have sparked the invention of iron.
The work reanalysed metallurgical remains from a site in southern Georgia: a 3000-year-old smelting workshop called Kvemo Bolnisi. During the original analysis in the 1950s, piles of hematite (an iron oxide mineral) and slag (a waste product of the metal production) were found in the workshop. ...