At https://dailygalaxy.com/2025/11/a-martian-rover-mapped-miles-of-lost-etruscan-tunnels-beneath-veii-and-what-it-found-is-turning-heads/ … a robot rover built to navigate the Martian landscape has been utilised to map miles-of tunnels beneath the Etruscan city oof Veii, in central Italy. It is in the hills north of Rome, standing in the way of the Roman expansion.The tunnels connected a hydraulic architecture of ponds and reservoirs and escape routes from seige. The city of Veii defied Rome for ten years. It fell in 396BC. It is thought some of the pools of water had a ritualistic purpose, currently unclear. One of them is located under the temple of Apollo.
At https://phys.org/news/2025-11-ct-scans-reveal-hidden-ancient.html …. extraction of copper from ore by processing appears to have begun around 3000BC in Iran. Whether it was produced by newly arrived immigrants or was an indigenous development is currently unknown. ,The period around 3000BC is known as the Piorra Oscillation and it witnessed some remarkable migratory movements in the ancient world. A people with an origin in the steppe zone to the north of the Caucasus fanned out east, west, and southwards. One movemnt took them all the way to Ur in Sumeria, leaving behind carbon copies of their kurgan burials – that became known as the Royall tombs of Ur. Did these people, or a related people, branch off into Iran? Metals were already being produced at Maikop, for example, at the NE of the Black Sea. However, the copper age itself was widespread across the Near and Middle East prior to 3000BC where it was known as the Chalcolithic. It was after 3000BC that the so called Bronze ages came into being – an alloy of copper and tin. It is an interesting subject as the newcomers were regarded as barbarians – and were later confined to northern Mesopotamia. These were the Subarians, a term that was applied to many later arrivals as well as the newcomers at this time. They had a greater impact genetically on Europe than they did on Sumerians and other peoples of the Levant and Middle East. It is thought the newcomers were hybridised with the indigenous inhabitants over a period of time as the use of horses was replaced by that of onagers, a local animal. In other words, a later manifestation of the newcomers did not materialise – until probably towards the end of the third millennium, when steppe movements brought new people south of the Black Sea, spilling into the Levant and the Aegean regions. This is basically what you need to bear in mind when you go to the link, as this is not part of the storyline that is presented. The new research comes from American researchers that have analysed slag waste cached in museums. Slag is a byproduct of copper derived from smelting ore. CT scanning and computed tomography were employed. See also https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0336603 … PLoSOne online journal.
At https://phys.org/news/2025-11-city-ravines-bronze-age-metropolis.html … The city of seven ravines. Ravines – not ravens [which I had in my head when I glanced at the headline]. A bronze age settlement sprawling over a ridge that perched above seven ravines, or steep valleys, in Khazakhstan. It stands above the river Irtych, in the NE of that state, and within the cenral Asian steppe zone. However, it has been provisionally dated around 1600BC – firmly within the Late Bronze period of the Near and Middle East, It had an industrial zone for the production of bronze from copper and tin ores. It had crucibles, slag deposits, and tin bronze objects in what was a complex in one area of the city. Copper and tin ores were probably accessed from the nearby Altai Mountains.
At https://www.livescience.com/archaeology/sophisticated-bronze-age-city-unearthed-in-kazakhstan-transforms-our-understanding-of-steppe-societies … long before the ancient Greeks imagined Zeus taking the form of a swan, or emerging from the constellation of Cygnis, the Natufians of the Levant depicted a similar idea. A goose mating with a female human. A 12,000 year old piece of fired old clay has been cleaned up and re-assembled by scientists at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. The Natufians lived in the Levant, including what is now Israel, beween the end of the Late Glacial Maximum and the Younger Dryas event. They had a sedantory lifestyle but were not yet farmers. More like managers of the landscape – prioritising favoured plants. The history of the Natufians is remarkable and this appears to add to that sense of mystique. A box of clay pieces that had been collected in Iran by archaeologists was analysed by modern methodology and came up with the results.