Hunter-gatherer metallurgy in the Early Iron Age of Northern Fennoscandia

The role of ferrous metallurgy in ancient communities of the Circumpolar North is poorly understood due, in part, to the widespread assumption that iron technology was a late introduction, passively received by local populations. Analyses of two recently excavated sites in northernmost Sweden, howev...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Antiquity 2021-12, Vol.95 (384), p.1511-1526
Main Authors: Bennerhag, Carina, Grandin, Lena, Hjärtner-Holdar, Eva, Stilborg, Ole, Söderholm, Kristina
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Archaeology
Carbon
Ceramics
Charcoal
Circumpolar North
Clay
Excavation
Fennoscandia
Furnaces
Historia
Historic artifacts
History
hunter-gatherer subsistence
Hunter-gatherers
Iron Age
Iron compounds
iron technology
Lithic
Metallurgy
Museums
Slag
Steel production
Subsistence economy
Technology
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Summary:The role of ferrous metallurgy in ancient communities of the Circumpolar North is poorly understood due, in part, to the widespread assumption that iron technology was a late introduction, passively received by local populations. Analyses of two recently excavated sites in northernmost Sweden, however, show that iron technology already formed an integral part of the hunter-gatherer subsistence economy in Northern Fennoscandia during the Iron Age (c. 200–50 BC). Such developed knowledge of steel production and complex smithing techniques finds parallels in contemporaneous continental Europe and Western Eurasia. The evidence presented raises broader questions concerning the presence of intricate metallurgical processes in societies considered less complex or highly mobile.
ISSN:0003-598X
1745-1744
1745-1744
DOI:10.15184/aqy.2020.248