Well , i tried to go arround mountains in bronce-iron age looking for onions seeds ( you can cook onion soup with just spice rack upgrade ) , its possible to stay there if you have already an iron buckler lvl 3 but if wolves event pops up get ready to be smashed , golems are almost a sure death if you dont get them into a pit because its so hard to kill them without iron mace and iron pickaxe way can be a suicide if u fall from them , drakes are not a problem
If you are lucky can fins uncover silver veins but the slow way ( hit with the big hammer the ground ) is loosing time
Iron mace and buckler its enought to crush bonemass