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The accidental discovery that forged the Iron Age

Ancient copper smelters may have accidentally set the stage for the Iron Age. At a 3,000-year-old workshop in Georgia, researchers discovered that metalworkers were using iron oxide not to smelt iron but to improve copper yields. This experimentation shows how curiosity with materials could have sparked one of history’s greatest technological leaps, turning iron from a rare celestial metal into the backbone of empires and industry.

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