In a fascinating twist of ancient chemistry, copper-smelting artisans may have stumbled upon a technique that would eventually lead to the intentional extraction of iron from ore, a discovery that was both accidental and revolutionary.A fresh analysis of slag, ores, and furnace residues from the 3,000-year-old site of Kvemo Bolnisi, Georgia, is rewriting the story of how humankind first learned to make iron.A team of researchers from Cranfield University in England, reexamining old finds from Kvemo Bolnisi using modern techniques, suggests that what had once been labeled an early iron-smelting site was actually a copper workshop that utilized iron oxides...