There was something unusual about the soil the archaeologists were excavating, but no one could have predicted what the drones would reveal from above. Dmanisis Gora, the Bronze Age fortress located in the Caucasus, was not just a defensive construction: it was a huge fortified city, whose walls stretched for over a kilometer.
It's a discovery that changes our understanding of prehistoric urbanization, and demonstrates how modern technology can rewrite history.
A mystery buried in time
When the team of archaeologists first arrived in the hills of Georgia, the summer sun illuminated only fragments of stone walls. The area looked like one of the many ruins scattered across the Caucasus, but there was something unusual: the layout of the remains did not match the dimensions of typical fortresses of the time. The real revelation, detailed in this study published three days ago in Antiquity, months later, with it arriving the following fall.
With the grass dry and the soil more visible, it became clear that the walls were not isolated: other structures emerged from the ground, outlining what appeared to be a much larger settlement. It was just the beginning.
A fortress and a technology rewrite the past
Knowing they couldn’t document everything from the ground, the team decided to rely on drones. Nearly 11.000 aerial images were taken, then stitched together to create digital models of the site. The result? A fortress 40 times larger than imagined. It was not just a defensive stronghold, but an urban complex with a large external settlement, delimited by walls over a kilometre long.
The images were then compared with photographs from Cold War spy satellites, declassified in 2013. A comparison that not only confirmed the ancient grandeur of the fortress, but also revealed the impact of modern agricultural activities, which over time have eroded part of the site.
An ancient fortress city between wars and shepherds
Scholars suggest that Dmanisis Gora was a strategic crossroads for the region’s nomadic peoples. Its location in the Caucasus Mountains made it ideal for trade and defense, but also for a phenomenon rarely documented in the Bronze Age: seasonal urbanization.
Secondo Nathaniel Erb-Satullo, archaeologist of the Cranfield Forensic Institute, the fortress may have been a center that grew and shrank with the movements of pastoral populations, who settled in the colder months and moved elsewhere in the summer. This model of dynamic urbanization offers a new perspective on the settlements of the time.
The future of research
Now archaeologists want to delve deeper into life inside the fortress: How many people lived there? How did they support themselves economically? By studying agricultural remains, the distribution of dwellings and the herders' routes, they hope to reconstruct how this ancient city lived and changed over time.
This discovery is yet another example of how modern technology, from drones to satellite imagery, can uncover forgotten cities and reveal the urban dynamics of thousands of years ago.
It happened even in the Amazon, and in the center of Europe, with sensational results. Perhaps, in the Caucasus, other buried fortresses are still waiting to be discovered.