engleski

Iron production management: a case study of bloomery iron production on Hlebine Velike Hlebine and Dedanovice site

Can we distinguish and interpret the source and level of influence between socio - economic and enviromental preconditions on choices made regarding workshop location selection, levels of iron production sequence employed in different working spaces and strategy of natural resource exploatation and usage? The presentation will adress these questions through case study of two sites interrelated by chronology, character and landscape. Based on the results of extensive field survey and geophysical research, two sites, Hlebine – Velike Hlebine and Hlebine – Dedanovice (1/2 7 – mid. 7th century) were excavated in several campaigns from 2016 to 2018. At Hlebine – Velike Hlebine site a complete bloomery iron production workshop was excavated while at the Dedanovice site pair of furnaces for primary and/or secondary smithing were identified. Both sites are situated at the edge of a flooding plain in the lowland area of Upper Drava river basin, the Podravina region (NW Croatia). While the bloomery iron production workshop was located on an isolated sandy ridge several hundred meters from the contemporary setllement, the smithing furnaces were set on the edge of the settlement grounds. Bog iron ore of local/regional origin was used for iron production. Corelation of REE (ICP – MS) of bog iron ore samples from both sites shows that they originate from the same micro – enviroment, which poses a question of the exploatation strategy. Through macroscopic analisys of metallurgical waste on both sites character of activities undertaken was presumed while spatial distribution of archaeological features and metallurgical waste indicates structured spatial organisation of the workspace based on the activities undertaken and their order in the iron production sequence. Patterns that could indicate interdependant labor organisation are seen on both sites.

bloomery iron production ; iron smithing ; early middle ages ; workshop organisation ; bog iron ore ; spatial distribution ; GIS ; ICP-MS

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