Ore Iron Viking Age

7/30/2019 Ore Iron Viking Age

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Ore, Fire, Hammer, Sickle: IronProduction in Viking Age and EarlyChapter 11

Medieval Iceland*

Iron production may be used as a window through which to view, in part, theeconomic structure of Icelandic society during the Viking Age (c. AD 870-1000)and Early Medieval (AD 1000-1264) periods. kon was a critical resource formaintaining and reproducing medieval Icelandic society, yet while several medievalsagas and related sources' mention iron smelters and smiths, documenting theirpresence within the society, they provide insufficient information to reconstruct theiron industry's technological basis, organization or role in the larger economy.2Recent archaeological research, combined with information gleaned from medievaitexts, provides opportunities for addressing these issues.

Kevin P. Smith

* Research on ion production at the site of Hls was undertaken in 1996 and 2000 withgenerous grants from the National Geographic Society and Norurl (NordicAluminum/Columbia Ventures), in collaboration with the National Museum of Iceland andwith the permission of the Kollslkur farm landowners. Additional support was provided byEimskip, Sparisjur Mlraslslu, Ungmennaflag Reykdla, Kvenflag Reykdla,Ungmennaflagi Brin, the communities of Reykholtsdalu and Hvtrrslsla, the BuffaloMuseum of Science and the Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology, Brown University. Theauthor wishes to thank Peter Bush, Eiizabeth Hamilton, Kristn Sigurardttir, AlexandeT. D. Dixon and aI1 crew members who participated in the excavations for tteir expeniseand contributions; he also thanks Michle Hayeur Smith fo her invaluable insights andloving support. Finally, advice from Steven A. Walton, Shepard Krech III, Rachel Scottand four anonymous reviewers has greatly strengthened this presentation; any remainingmistakes or misinterpretations of the data are the sole responsibility of the autho.1 The term saga,as used here, follows general usage in lcelandic studies and refers toliterary-historical works produced indigenously, in the vernacular, from the mid-twelfthcentury onwad that incorporate historical themes, events, and personages presented bytheir authors as real, rather than mythic or heroic, figures in Icelandic, Scandinavian andrelated early medieval societies. See Jnas Kristjnsson, Eddas and Sagas - Icelan'sMedieval Literature (Reykjavk, 1997),for a more detailed discussion. In addition to thesagas, limited information on the roles and products of smelters and smiths can be gleanedfom Iceland's medieval law code, Grdgs (see notes 8 and 9, below).2 See Mark Hall, "Viking Age Ironworking: The Evidence from O1d Norse Literature,"n The Written and the Wrought: Complementary Sources in Historical Anthropology,KroeberAnthropological Society Papers 79 (1995), pp. 195-203.


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r84The expansion of the Norse across the North Atlantic and their establishmentof sustainable colonies were predicated, in part, on their ability to find and exploitsources of ore suitable for smelting into useable iron. The presence of a smehingfacility at the Norse t:xploration base of L Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland,testifies to the importance the Norse placed on locating and testing sources of ironore in the process of colonization.'After smelting, raw iron ..blooms', were forgedinto billets and bars, and werr: then transformed into the essential equipment

required to sustain the colony's expansion. This equipment included agnculturalinstruments such as the scythes, sickles and pack saddles required for the summerhay harvests that were the foun


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186 KEVIN P. SMITHpolitical autonomy is based on provisions incorporated in the medieval Iceland.iclaw codes, the pr:rspective that Icelandic households were economicailyautonomous gained its curent form in response to diarogues forged duringIceland's nineteenth-century struggle for independence.r3 1."orai"ng to thisperspective, households were self-sustaining and linked to the outside worldthrough periodic visits to harbors where they traded with foreign merchants.Internally there was iittle, if ;rny, economic activity beyond the household otherthan the tributary movement of goods from non-elite to elite households in theform of rents, tribute, tithes and gifts.'.Iron production is one aea where exceptions to this model have beenconsidered. For exarnple, Jn Jhannesson wrote that it was ..necessary for everyfarm to have a smithy, and to produce charcoal as we[, where woorand areasexisted," and that smeiting was most commonly done ..by the blacksmithsthemselves to extract from ther haematite the iron which they used in their craft.',However, he felt that "smelting was not practised at every farm ... since haematitevaries in quantity from one marshland to the next, and in some areas is completelynon-existent. Thus ole may salely conclude that the production of iron reached itspeak in districts where both haematite and wood were abundant. Supplies of ironmust then have been sold to regions where it was scarce."rsKarlsson, Kristjn Sveinsson aid Mrur rnason, eds, Grgs: tog^ofrirt"^t*jveldisins (Reykjavik, 1992). secondary sources incorporatinjth" i. o', househord:tToTl" autonomy in ear medieval Iceland underpinne potial lna"p"nn." includeE. Paul Durenberger,'r-he Dynamics of Medievat lciland: potiticar EconZ*y a rruroru*(Iowa city, 1992); idem, "poduction in Medieval rceland,', Acta arrn'"ologiro6l (1991),pp..14-21; and Byock, \hking Age Iceland.., I 3 For the law codes, see bennis, Foote and perkins, rws; and Kalsson, sveinsson, andAnason, Gnig. Aclassic. statemelt on the supposed poritical and econornic independenceof Icelandic househoiders is Einar tafur sveinson's The Age of the sr"rr";;;, IcerandiccivilizarionintheThirteenthcentury,rslandica36(Ithaca,NY,res:;. conceriingtinkagesbetween household auronomy, politicar po*"r, und the Icelandic #r"p.n";;-movementsee orri Vsteinsson, "Patrerns of settrement in lceland: A study in p."lniito.y,J saga-Bookof the vking sociery 25 (1998), 1tp. 1-29. Halldr Laxness's Nobel prize-iinning novelIndependenr People,trans. by J. A. Thompson (New york, 1946), naces this Iceiandic themeofextreme independence fictionally to bth its logical and ragic ends.14 staremenrs of this perspective in historid, anthroplogicar, and archaeorogicalstudies can be found in many so.r_ces, incruding Jn Jhannes", nxnry-o the ordI_celandic commonwealth, trans. Haraldur Bess-ason, university of Manitoa IcelandicSeries 2 (winnipeg, 974); Bntce Gersinger, Icerandic Enterpre:: i**"rr" onU*,no:l,in the Middle.Ages (Columbia, SC,lSSt); and Dunenbeig"r,Oyi*ircr.tJ Jhannesson, History, pp. 300-301; these views have recentry been resurrected byThorbjm Fridriksson and Margrt Hermanns-Auardtti, .,t onrn'atdng in lcetan," inB_loomery lronmaking During 200() years: semnnr in Budar.en I99 ,vorumi Ii: Iron in the\e1t-Wgrdtc Region During the..Middte Ages, ed. Arne Espelund (Trondheim, l99Z), pp.5-16. It should be noter as.well that despite Jhannesson's use of ihe t"rrrr, uog ore is notsynonymous with hemarjte/h.T1"]1,: (Fe2o3). Bog ore is a combinarion oi hyrated ironoxides, commonry goethte (FeocrH), *ic, *r,e heated or roasted to driv our warer,can produce hematite. arnong other oxides, from which iron "an be producJirectty in ttrereducing atmosphere of the bloomcry furnace.

IRON PRODUCTION IN VIKING AGE AND EARLY MEDIEVAL ICELAND i87Iron production provides a particularly useful basis for examining theeconomic system of medieval Iceland archaeologically, since iron was one of thefew durable materials produced in Icelard from raw material to finished object'Production sites offer unique opportunities for monitoring variability through timeand space in the scale, organization and environmental impacts of industrialactivities that were essential to the society's operation. Furthermore, iron, in theform of tools, weapons, and even jewelry penetrated into every household and ispresent on every excavated Icelandic site. Domestic sites, therefore, providepportunities to monitor variabitity through time and space in the rates at whichiio.r *us acquired and consumed, the range of object types used and discarded,and the abilities of households to repair and produce their own iron tools. As acritical resource with limited distribution and an ideological charter linking itsproduction to the realm of the gods, iron could potentiatly have been monopolizedty Icelandic chieftains. Comparisons of iron production and maintenance debrisat sites occupying different positions in regional socio-political hierarchies maytherefore provide data on whether iron production was centralized ordecentralized, how its distribution was organized, and whether these relationshipschanged thfough time. While it is not possible to address aII of these issues here,

the rmainder of this paper initiates a discussion about them, starting with anexamination of a Viking Age iron production complex under excavation at awestern Icelandic site called Hls.Hls: A Viking Age Iron Production complex in western IcelandThe site of Hls is located on a low ridge crest, 100 m above modem sea levei, inthe interior portion of western lceland's Borgarfjrur district (Fig- 11.1).Excavations at the site began in 1988 and focussed initially on the remains of anEarly Medieval farmstead occupied c. AD 1000-7275.In 1989 the remains of aniron production complex were identified in the south-eastern corner of the site'Subsequent excavation and dating demonstrated that this iron-productioncomplex, covering approximately 0.1 hectare, pre-dated the farm's foundation andcould be attributed to the Viking Age.'uEvidence of iron-production facilities at Hls, concentrated in the northern halfof this zone, include at least one slag heap covering45 mz with semi-stratifieddeposits 20-30 cm in maximum thickness, smaller slag concentrations potentially

16 The iron production complex at Hls was discovered during a season of survey andtest excavations undetaken in collaboration with the Nationai Museum of Iceland and theAmerican-scandinavian Foundation to document the extent and structure of aneieventh-twelfth century farmstead at the site. Further investigation of the ir-on-productionc-pl"* at Hls (excavation aeas Hts 5 and Hls 6) was undertaken in 1996 and 2000',"i i" collaboraion with the National Museum of Iceland, with grants from the NationalGograpiric Sociery and support from a coalition of local industries, businesses andcommunity groups (see note * above).


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i88 KEVIN p. SMHrepresenting additional, outl-ving slag heaps, and a cluster of production featuresincluding furnace bases, pits, and smithing debris forming an arc around thewestern end of the main slag heap. Twenty meters south of the production zone isan associated area containing two superimposed pit-houses, each of which hasdebris from smelting and forging in its floor and fitri deposits (Fig. r1.2).A chaacteristic bi-chromrtic volcanic ash layer called the ..Landnm tephra,,,dated in the Greenland ice c to g7l + z ADJ hes just below the charcoal andslag-rich deposits at, Hls and was present in the upper surface of turf blocks usedto construct both of the pit-houses and the furnace excavated at the site. sixradiocarbon dates on birch charcoal recovered from iron production features andthe associated pit-houses indicate that iron production tok plu"" at Hls over aspan of nearly one century in the rate ninth and tenth ceniuries (Fig. 11.3). Abimodal tendency in the dates suggests two separate periods of intense-productionnear the start and the end of the tenth century. Two grayish-white undecoratedglass beads recovered from ttre iron-production deposits are types that were mostpopular in scandinavia c. AD 975-955, supporting other chronometricinformation from the site.r8Although the upper levels of the site have been disturbed by frost-heaving, theIower iayers preserr'e traces of a comprex sfratigraphic recrd suggesting thatproduction took piar:e at the site episodically, rather than continuousiy, over thisperiod of time. Throughout the northern part of the complex, thin, oftendiscontinuous layeri; of wind-blown silt separate strata representing episodes ofintense industrial activity. In one particularly clear case, seven distinct layers offill that accumulatecl in a pit excavated during the late tenth century for makingcharcoal were associated with different aspects of iron and charcoal production.,eThis sequence suErgests that several different iron-production campaignscontributed to the accumulation of debris in this feature, in which different aspects

- .tt 9.n the riating of. the "Lancllm tephra," see Kal Grnvold et at.,..Ash Layer fromIceland in the Greenlarldic GRIP Ice Core Corelated with Oceanic and Land Sediments,,'Earth and Planetary stience Letrcrs 135 ( 1995), pp. 149-55. Identihcation of the Landnmtgphra at Hls was done through microprobe nalyses by Karl Gronvld and Nelsoskarsson of the Nordic VolcanoTogical Inititute, university tf Iceland, Reykjavft.18 These two beads, of types Ar0 and A02, *" -"--b"rs of the viking Age Ab andAc beg! groups defined in Johan Callmer's Trade Beads and Bead Trade in Scand.innva,ca. 800-1000 A.D., A^cta Archa*ologica Lundensia 11 (Lund, r9i7). Ab jroup beads,including Type A0 10, are generally rae but are most frequently iecovered in Scandinaviandeposits dated cica AD 845-955. Group Ac beads are more cormon and have morecomplex histories of use and popularity: Type A020 Group Ac beads are most frequentlyfound in contexts dated before AD 845 , bur h;d a second pt in popularity , . lo sl s_sss(pp.78, 170,219).19 These stata included two layers of compact charcoal separated by a layer of wind-blown silt - documentir:g trto separate phases oi charcoal production "urty in te use of thispit, one thick layer of roasted bog ore mixed with silt from the *ult otn" plt, ana tteeseparate strata \/ith quantitatively, q]'alitatively and visualiy distinct combinaons of slag,fie-cracked rock, charcoar and afi.efacrs filling the upper hff of the pit.

IRON PRODUCTION IN VIKiNG AGE AND EARLY MEDIEVAL ICELAND 189of ironworking activify shifted across this part of the site during its latter periodof use. Similar movements of production activities around the site probablycharacterized each major industrial phase and contributed to the overlapping,palimpsest nature of the site's features and stratigraphy. Additional evidence forepisodic activity at the site is presented by the complex construction andabandonment histories of the two pit-houses constructed sequentially at thesouthern end ofthe site.

Our "best guess" reconstruction, combining all information currently available,is that production took place at Hls in two major phases, thirty to sixty yearsapart, with each phase incorporating several distinct smelting campaigns in whichiion was produced episodicalty over an unknown span of years' Each ironproduction episode, in turn, included many sepafate smelts and their relatedactivities, quite likely undefaken on a seasonal basis.The principal raw material used at the site was bog ore, gathered frommarshlands adjacent to the production area. Bog ore is widely distributed inIceland and is produced as water percolates through basaltic bedrock, dissolvingand transporting iron oxides that precipitate in the acidic waters of sedge and peatbogs, wh-re it is fixed as nodules around the roots of plants.'o Although common,iron-producing bogs are unevenly distributed across the landscape. Theirproductivity shifts rapidly with changing hydrological regimes; deforestation ordrainage can completely disrupt the precipitation cycles in bogs that were onceiron-rich. However, without major disruptions, it is said that iron-rich bogs couldbe harvested anew each genelation after being allowed to lie "fallow" for twentyto thrrty years.ttAlthough fist-sized nodules of bog ore can easily be found within walking

20 The abundance of iron-producing bogs in Iceland was sufficiently remarkable tomedieval Norwegians that the thirteenth-century author of Konungs skuggsj (The King'sMirror) noted iiin his otherwise limited description of Iceland (Lawrence MarcellusLarson, trans., The Ring's Mrror [Speculum regalae - Konungs skuggsj]',New York'1gl7 ,p.134). On the prcess of bog re formarion, see Ame Espelund, l'Bog Iron Ore fortfr" jfo.".y procesi" in Bloomery lronmaking During 2000 Years, U,olu.nlI, Ancientirorrnot irg n a Local and Generai Norwegian Context, ed. Arne Espelund (Trondheim,sgri, pp."g; Anna M. Rosenqvist,::n"p"f "l ghemical and Mineralogical Analysesf ei* Ores, Stags, and kon," Offa aO (1983); and Ronaid F. Tylecote and Rodneye. bb"g "Recenr nof lion ore Analyses and the Smelting of Pyrite Nodules," offa 4o(1983),pp.115-18.'-- ti'T" regeneration of bog ores is a subject better known trough anecdotal reports thandetailed studyl and may well vary from place to place. Nevertheless, the author of Konungsit "Sgt upp'"*r to note the n*iitory nture of bog ore deposits in describing the Icelandic;'o.]lnu*f " "It has happened at mes that great deposits of this oe haveeen found, andmen haue prepared to go thither the next day to smelt it and make iron of it, only to find it gone,and none a eil what becomes of it." (p. 134) While the descriptions of "matvels" n Konungss;kuggsj do not always inspire full confidence rn theg accuracy, this passage accords weil with,h;r'ig"* of bog re deposits to changes in hydrology. By the mid-thirteenth century, whenKonuigs skuggsjiwasmost likely written (pp. 58-641, environmental degradaon appears tot uu" U"n *e under*ay in many parts of ttanA and might have been locally severe enoughto provoke instability in ore deposits'locations and productivity'


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190 KEVIN P. SMITHdistance of the site today. it no ronger accumurates in the bogs immediaterysurrounding the site, pointing to changes since the viking ege in the bogs,hydrology. However, hundreds of rumps of bog ore found cached in a pit andscattered throughout the site's deposits document that ore was harvested nearbyand stored for processing at Hls. Although obvious ore-roasting features have notbeen located, shalLow pits containing charcoal and small amounts of ore may haveserved this purpose-

The fuel used for roasting ore and making iron at the site was birch charcoal.Two large charcorl-burning pits - the largest 3 m in diameter, nearry l m deep,and with two separate rayers of charcoar in its base - testify to the pioduction offuei on-sire." Arrhough the landscape around Hls is today compltery treeless,logs of fully gro'r'vn birch trees were present in the peat d"porit, of the bogsadjacent to the site, below the Landnm tephra layer. Their presence, coupled withhigh levels of birch pollen n the bogs' pre-Landnm strata, indicate that the sitewas wooded when the Norse arrived. shortly after iron production started, birchpollen influx into the bog dropped precipitously, birch macrofossils decreaseddramatically in number, and wood charcoar from nearby burning began toaccumulate in the peat strata.23until the 2000 excavations, smelting could be inferred at the site only from thesize of the slag heaps and te nature of the srag recovered; fumaces used forsmelting eluded o'r investigations. work in 2000 uncoveed what appears to bethe first well-doc*mented series of viking Age smelting furnace ases fromIceland (Fig. 11.a)' These were recognizabre as a stacked series of c-shaped,shallow bowls of siag. each 25-35 cm in diameter and 5-10 cm thick, and eachwith a lower, "broken-out" zone on the eastern side of the ring. In plan view, atleast four of these rings, each representing a separate episode of furnaceconstruction, could be seen superimposed above and beside traces of a rarger,earlier, damaged c,vate base with a diameter of 45-50 cm and a thick deposit ofslag along its southem side. so far, only the upper part of this complex deposit hasbeen excavated.Flat, fire-shattered pieces of basart, many with adhering slag, were foundclustered around these rings" while a tightly constrained zone of charcoal-stainedsoil extended eastwad from the center ofthe deposit, suggesting the location ofaport through which. air coulcl be introduced. A roughly v-shaped arrangement ofsmall, heat-fractuled stones extended from the broken-out portion of theuppermost slag ring into the inner end of this charcoal-stained zone. This mostlikely provided support and protection for a bellows nozzle. The absence ofceramic tuyre fragments at the site suggests that iron bellows nozzles were used

IRON PRODUCTON IN VIKING AGE AND EARLY MEDIEVAL ICELAND i91to force a controlled air blast directly into the furnace shaft through this port''z4 Thegeneral absence of ceramic tuyres at Icelandic and Scandinavian bloomery sitesi'mplies they were not integral components of smelting technology in the NorthAtlantic Viking Age.-Although neither standing furnace walls nor clay linings were preservedin situ,small frost-shattered fragments of fire-hardened and vitrified silty clay have beenfound scattered throughout the slag heap. At least one of these preserved the edgeof what appea$ to be a circular, vitrifed opening for a bellows nozzle. These, thefirst ceramic fumace linings reported from Iceland, were recovefed only by water-screening bulk soil samples from the slag heaps. Although small' they are clearlyremnants of once more abundant, expediently produced, fragile ceramic liningsthat have not withstood the intense freeze-thaw cycles characteristic of theIcelandjc setting. The remnants of these ceramic linings from Hls are no morethan 3 cm thick and would certainly not have allowed the furnaces to be self-standing.Nordidexcavationssuggestthatthicker,unfiredclaywallswereoncepresent. However, slag lumps found adhering to samples of this clay-like matrixas well as to fire-reddened slabs of basalt suggest that both mateials may havebeen used to line the furnace shafts.

- Experiments using direct bellows blasts_into a reconstructed low-shaft bloomeryfurnace were undefakeri itt tutuy 2002 n southern Ontario, with Darrell Markewitz ofWareham Forge and members oi th" D-k Ages Re-Creation Company (DARC)' Theseexperiments dmonstrated that iron bellows nzzles, employed without ceramic or otherrrr"ii"g tuyres, could be used effectively to introduce air into the furnace withoutsignifict ciogging of the bellows or attrition of its nozzle'"2s D"spit"* ntory of archaeological investigations in fceland, no complete orfragmentary ceramic toy.", have been recoveed irom smelng or smithing sites andfuyrefragmentsarerarelymentioned.inthe.copiousliterafueonNorwegiansmeltingsites. Four semi-vitrified bsalt slabs with semicirular indentations suitable for protectinga bellows nozzle, recovered from a Viking Age smithy in ngftiliit< -(Else Nordahl'n"ylii'*ro* tne ercnaiitolircal Point of-et,Aun 12' Uppsala' 1988'58' 98 and Figsiz', i+O>,"*" *ort trtety uetiws shields from Viking Age forges-' !9191oeous with thetuo.lr, "ng.uuea .'torge stone" from Snaptun, Denmark (P. V. Glob, "Avlsten: Nye TyperfraDanmarks lemaJder:, mt,isse,p.ol,rig.2),theceramicforgesrones ("essesteine")o smitrries in eariy Viking Age Ribe (He1g Binch Madsen, "Die Eisenschlacken vonRibe,,, Metalta, no"n"*, lS,ip. S-f f ), arid simila ceramic examples from Early lrong'tiinitg facilitiei at Het, Germany, and Viking Age forging deposits atHaithabuIedeUy,lenmrt (see Frank Nikuk, "Between the Mountains and the Sea: TheDevelopment of Iron Production in Northwestem Germanyi' in Prehis-toric an'd' MedievalDirect lron Smelting in scandnviaan. Europe,ed. Lars christian Nrbach, Aahus' 2003'pp. 63_6). These examples suggesr that flai, perforated forge stones, both ceramic andstone, may have taken ttie pfu.""tu*ic tuyies in Nordic Viking Age smithies, but theiruse in smelng to*u."t'i., to my knowldg9, unprovel' fo .1uclr "forge stones" orfragments therJof have been'recoved from Hls. Ittlut"t lcelandic forges, such as thosemaintained in nineteenrhntury turf-houses (and preserved-as open-air museums innorthern Iceland), ." ;;h forg stones or shields were employedl the blast from thebellows reached t" ,rnitfri"t'trJartfts directly through long iron tubes, discharged throughthe stone-built walls forming the backs of the forges themselves'22 The earher of these pits was used and infilled early in the sequence of site use,

according to radiocarbon dating and stratigraphic sequencing, while th latter pit appearsto bclong fully to the late renrh-century phse ofiron-producion activity ut rt"'rit".23 Alexander T. l). Dixon, "Lannm and changing Landuse ui FIet, SourhwestIceland: A Paleoecological study" (MSc rhesis, universiry-of sheffield, 1997).


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192 KEVIN P. SMITHsurrounding the furnace bases was a matrix of dense silt-based turf. In cross-section it courd been seen that this matrix, surrounding the uppermost and ratestfurnace base, included turf brocks incoporating the Landnm iepr'a stacted at anangle against the inner core of the furnace to form the furnace stack itself. Heapedaround the turf brocks was an extensive deposit of roose, sterile silt thatsurrounded and supported the furnace's core and would have prevented air fromentering the shaft through its turf wail. A weil-defined, verticiedge between thissilt deposit and the surroundi'g trampred surface of the iron-proution work areasuggests that the silt and turf body of the furnace had been encrosed in arectangular crib-like strucfure, presumabry of wood, with a stone-flanked openingto the east through which beilows could have been inserted and through whichslag may have been removed.overall, the size, shape, and construction of the fumaces and their associateddebris are generaily consistent with untapped, row-shaft broomery furnacesknown from early viking Age Norway. rire have been well documented byIrmelin Martens and others, and are thought to have produced blooms of raw iron8-10 kg in mass du'ing good smerts.'u what clearly oiffers from the Norwegianfurnaces is the absence of a thick ceramic furnace stack - a point that may bedirectly related to a paucity of substantial deposits of good clay in lceland,syoung geologicar landscape. Smat deposits oi mixed glacialry eposited ctayand silt are found along the banks of some glacial rivers, but these have neverproven suitable for producing ceramic vessels and rnay have been unsatisfactoryfor building either serf-supporting or slab-framed cray furnace stacks. Instead,the evidence from llls suggests that these furnaces had stacks buitt of turfblocks, lined internally with pieces of basart cemented into a thin veneer of siltyglacial clay.r?Given the smail diameters of the furnace bases exposed in 2000, it is unlikerythat the furnace stack was higher than 70 cm. The wooden-framed constructionsurrounding the furnace stack may also have, therefore, served as a pratform forloading, charging, ancl emptying the furnaces after each smelting episode. Figure11.5 provides a tentative reconstruction ofthis furnace,s appearance during use.As in other parts of the site, the superimposed series of fo*u"" bases exposedin 2000 preserves si-lggestions; of episodic use and change. For example, theealiest furnace base identified at this location appea$ to have been almost twiceas large as those that were buirt over it. stratigraphic cross-sections adjacent to

IRON PRODUCTION IN VIKING AGE AND EARLY MEDIEVAL ICELAND 193this base suggest that it may have been rebuilt at least three times before beingabandoned. The smaller-diameter furnace bases described above appeal to sit off-centel to this earlier construction, yet within the same general area. suggesting re-use of the frame and facility after a period of disuse. Although none of the furnacebases have yet been individually dated, or fully excavated, the observeddifferences in the sizes and orientations of the furnace bases raise questions aboutwhether more than one type of furnace was employed at the site during the courseof its use.No slag-tapping basins were found in the vicinity of the furnace bases exposedin 2000 and virfually no tap slag has been recovered from the site - 97 per cent ofthe estimated 5000 kg of slag present in the main slag heap appears to beamorphous furnace slag typical of non-tapped shaft furnaces." The main slag heapitself covers an area of at least 45 mz, blanketing a shallow slope between theproduction area and the margins of the adjacent bog. Between the furnace and thisslag heap was a zone in which charcoal was abundant but large concentrations ofsmelting slag were relatively infrequent. At the eastern edge of this zone lay abattered boulder, beyond which plano-convex smithing hearth bottoms wereclustered. Miniscule spheroids of slag and hammer scale, typical products ofsecondary smithing during bloom consolidation, were common in this area.'eSeveral broken or fragmentary pieces of semi-fabricated iron tools were alsorecovered from the same general area. The size of the spheroids, the number ofsmithing heath bottoms and the relative concentration of semi-processed ironobjects strongly suggest that raw blooms (btsturirn) were processed here intocompressed blooms (fettujrn),and perhaps further into semi-fabricated forms.During the 1996 season a broken iron shaft with a fragmentary, flattenedexpanding end was recovered from the fll of the earlier of the two pit-housesidentified at the site, and in 2000 two flattened spatulate fragments of forged ironwith rounded ends were recoveted from the site (Fig. 11.6). One came from theproduction area near the boulder; the other was ecovered from the fill of the samepit-hoor" that produced the expanded shaft in 1996. In size and shape, these threeU.""tt match remarkably well the spatulate ends and shafts of Norwegian VikingAle ..cunency bars" - forged iron bars of consistent size and mass generallythought to have been produced as standardized units of exchange, in which the

26 see Irmerin Martens, "Brsterjern og Ferlujern: Noen synspunkter p en Lite paktetFunngruppe." in (Jniversitete ordsaksa;ti"g IiT r, Jubileumsrbok 1979 (osro, 1979),pp. i90-97; idem, "The Norwegian Bioomery"Furnales and rhei Relation to rhe EuropeanFinds," offa 40 (1983), Ir92a; and idem,.iron in soutrr"urt"rn No.ry in tir" pr"i"uperiod.".in Bloomery lronmaking. "ol. II. pp. 55_6g.r/ Although the construction of the frnace at Hls differs in significant details fromhei tentative reconstruction, the possibility tui tu.r-uilt f"d;; ;; jau""o infce.land was_previously suggested bi Fridriks;on un H".rnunns_Ar "rdtti; Ionmatingin lceland" (see nores 43.44,and.a7. below).

28 Dr Elizabeth Hamilton, notes (files, Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology,Brown University); see also note 31, below. However, fragments of tap s1ag, includingboth runnels and fractured tap-basin slags, were recovered in 1989 from another erodingslag concentration located td the southeast of the slag heap excavted in the 1996 and200 seasons at Hls. This suggests the possibility that additional furnaces, with slag-tapping capabilities, were usedi the site. If so, those furnaces have yet to be located orexposed.29 On the identification of archaeologically ecoverable by-products from forging andsmithing, see J. G. McDonnell, "A Modei for the Formation of smithing Slags," MaterialyArcheoioigiczne 26 (199r),pp.23-7; and Peter Crew, "Bloom Refining and Smithing Slagsand other Residuesl' Archnology Datasheet No.6,Historical Metallurgy Society (1996)'


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194 KEVIN P. SMITI{final shape demonsrrared both the iron's qualities and perhaps also its regionarorigin''. The presence of these fragments at Hrs suglest, r,ut tr,"f representwaste from bars broken during forging, perhaps because-ofpoor iron [uahty.r,A small numb,':r of artifcts found at Hli arso testify io ancilrary activitiesundertaken at the site. incrucling generarized repair of iron and composie tools andlimited non-ferro's metarworking. clipped ails impry the repair of objectsbrought to the site. A iveted bucket puli, ,ogg"rts some work fabricating orrepairing compound iron otrjects. Two small iron carving knives, discarded nearthe pit-houses, hir:t at craftwork or domestic activities undertaken in support ofiron production. Srnal pieces of copper alroy scrap and possible flecks of silver inone block of slag examined by scanning erecton microscopy also suggest somelevel of on-site wok in non-ferrous *"lr, concurrent with iron production.Based on the evidence at hand, it is difficurt not to conclude that theironworkers gathered at Hrs brought with them a diversified range of skils, somequite specialized und, others less so, which enabled them to undertake nearly theentire iron-production process from ore and fuel gathering to the production ofstandardized iron cbjects for exchange (Fig. 11.7). At the same tirne, trre rack ofevidence for comparably intensive smithing on-site suggests that most of the finarfabrication of tools made from the iron produced at Hls was done elsewhere. Asnoted above. there is no evidence for an inhabited farm-site at Hls contemporarywith this iron-production phase, rendering it impossible to suggest where the nextstages of fabrication were undertaken. However, the majority f welr-dated earlyviking Age habitation sites in Icerand are located in the coastar and near_coastarowlands.32 some, but not a[, of these sites have smithies, yet few have producedevidence of on-site smelting facilities.3'Thus it is possible that the iron produced

- '1. 9l currency bars, se^elerer crew, "The Experimental production of prehistoric Barkon," Htoric Metar!,urgv.25 (r'r91), pp. zr-o; as peter crewnd-iriop-rr". l. surr"r,"currency Bars wirh .welded rrps,; in'Broomerylronmaking During 2000 years, vorumeIII: smelttng and Exco-vaton in irudaren,ed. Ame Esperund


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196post-medieval Nonvegian bloomery production, allows rough estimation of theamount of iron produced there, the mass of ore and charcoal consumed, and thenumber of smelting runs underrtaken at the site.36Peter crew's experimental work using reconsfucted Iron Age broomeryfurnaces of simiiar size and structure suggests that a 5000 tg ireap of siagcontaining 45-60 per cent residual iron oxide content coulJ represent theproduction of roughly 1400 k of raw iron brooms from approximatety 6zoo t


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198 KEVIN P. SMiTHIceland as Hls - lvas remernbered as the first man to discover how to make ironin Iceland.ar His story is not told anywhere in great detail, yet immediately raisesquestions since m.any of Iceland's settlers came from western and southernNorway, where iron had been smelted for centuries from bog iron.o2 The fact thatRaua-Bjm's accomprishnent was remembered four hundred years after hisapparent "discovery" suggests that he may have devised a solution io a critical butunrecorded techncrrogical probrem, unique to Iceland, that stood in the way ofsuccessful provisioning, rather than simply having been the first man to smert ironin Iceland using tried-and-tne Scandinavian bloornery furnace designs.understanding the technicai details of Icelandic iron producon is madeespecially difficult since iron ceased to be produced in quantities useful forprovisioning the society by the mid-sixteenth cenrury. As a resurt, there are nodetailed written descriptions of the Icerandic iron industry or its technologicarcomponents. Althorigh smithies used to forge imported iron are well known fromdocumented sevenfeenti- through nineteenth-century structures, no Icelandicbloomery furnaces have been preserved or described. Archaeorogicardocumentation has been elusive as well.In the early twentieth century, Niels Nielsen surveyed the evidence forironworking in Iceland and excavated what he believed to be a stone-lined pitfurnace at Belgs in northern lcerand.o3 He argued that he had found evidence fortwo types of medieval fumace - a pit furnace and an above-ground kind.unfortunately, his documenation and descriptions are insufficieitry clear toevaluate his claims or to cornpare his furnaces adequatery with tater-dcumentedfinds from Scandina.via. Nielsen also had no way to date his sites. The pit furnacehe described from Bergs, if ir is indeed a furnucl, is unrike known examples fromthe scandinavian Viking Age. If it represents a srag-collecting pit beneath afurnace whose superstructure has disappeared - rather tnan a-pit fumace, asNielsen thought - ts constncrion and size would find its closest parallels farealier, in the Norwegian Early Iron Age (c. 350 BC_AD 500).*

IRON PRODUCTION IN VIKING AGE AND EARLY MEDIEVAL ICELAND 199In the 1970s, Gumundur lafsson excavated the bases of what appear to betwo small Viking Age smelting furnaces at the tenth-century site of Grelutttir, innorth-western lceland. Each was represented only by a shailow depressionassociated with small amounts of slag, located off-center in small turf-walled

houses built within the confines of a Viking Age farm's homefeld. The amount ofslag recovered from the site Suggests that these smelters were used to produceonly 20-50 kg of raw iron blooms, at most, presumably for home use.o5 A furnacehut with somewhat similar layout, excavated at L'Anse aux Meadows,Newfoundland, also appears to have been used for the production of just a fewkilograms of iron.o6Thorbjrn Fidriksson and Margrt Hermanns-Auardttir briefly describe theexcavation of a similar fumace at Ormsstair, northern lceland, apparentlyconstructed inside a turf-walled structure 7.5 m long andZ m wide.oT Nothingremained of the furnace itself but a sub-rectangular pit in the structure's floor,roughly 60 cm wide, 80 cm long, and 40 cm deep, containing three superimposedlayers of slag and bog ore. Fridriksson and Hermanns-Auardttir interpreted thepit as a slagging basin beneath a furnace built of humic floor material packedaround a charge of ore and charcoal, held in place by turf blocks supported bysticks or planks.as Unfortunately, no information has been published concerningthe dating of the site or the amount of slag recovered at Ormsstair, making itdifficult to estimate its age or productivity.No traces of ceramic furnace linings, constructed clay furnace walls, tuyres'or in situ furnace bases were reported from these sites, but, as at Hls, bothOrmsstair and Grelutttir yielded evidence for both the storage of bog ore and

41 lnndnmabk r-\il; Haul


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zOO KEVINP. SMITHsmithing near the firnaces. Poor preservation conditions at both Ormsstair andGreluttti precludo definitive reconstructions of the furnaces, yet each appears tohave been provided- with a shaliow sub-fumace slagging pit, untite known vikingAge iow- and mirj-shaft bloomery furnaces from mainrand scandinavia.ae Inaddition, the furnaces at all of these rocations, with the exception, perhaps, ofBelgs, appear to have been enclosed within smal turf-warted structures, anwere unassociated with other production features, such as charcoal-burning pits.The iron production complex at Hrs differs in several significant ways fromthese other sites. F,r example, no evidence has been recovered to indicate that asemi-permanent roofed structure was ever built over the furnace at Hls, andrather than being n proximity to a farm or major residentiar complex (as atGrelutttir and L'Anse aux Meadows), the comprex at Hls appears to have beenseasonally used and far enough distant from a residential site to have required theconstruction and maintenance of pit-houses there for temporary occupation. Theevidence for both intensiveuse ofthe site in sequential iron-production campaignsand for returns tc the site after episodes of disuse also impry long-terminvestments in the location that differ from the other sites described to date. Thescale of production at Hls arso appears to have been larger by an order ofmagnitude than has been inferred for other Icelandic sites. Although nor huge bymedieval industriai standards. Hils does stand out as a large metailurgical site incomparison with other known Icelandic sites, and one that existed onlts own fothe production of iron, rather than being an ancillary structure on an establishedfarmstead.These aspects of the site, rrus the size and shape of the furnace bases and thesuite of surrounding production features uncovered at Hls, correspond wel withcontemporaneous open-air, riuge- to medium-scale viking Age bloomery ironproduction sites in mainland scandinavia, especially tvtart"n's Group lBI sitesfrom Msstrond, south-eastern Norway, which are dated to the period AD800-950.5" The onl1, significant difference fom these Norwegian sites ls that thefurnace shafts at Hls were n't built from clay. The indications at Hls of a turf_built, clay-and-ston*lined furnace with a surrounding wood-framed enclosuresuggest an innovative solution developed early in the Icelandic settlement periodto solve problems faced in adapting welr-known Nordic techniques of ironproduction to a country wirh few supplies of usable clay. Fridiksson andHermanns-Auardttir's somewhat similar reconstruction of the furnace atormsstaif ' suggests that the design may have been present in distant parts of theisland and had enduring value. Futher, Jan Henning Larsen's description of low-

IRON PRODUCTION IN VIKING AGE AND EARLY MEDIEVAL ICELAND 201shaft furnaces from Setesdal, Norway, dang to the period AD 900-1450, withframes of turf, silt and small stones insulating and supporting clay-and-stone-linedfumace shafts suggests that prototypes similar to the Hls furnace may haveexisted in Viking Age or Early Medieval Norway.52It is therefore tempting to wonder whether an adaptation of this south-easternNorwegian design was the creative solution for which Raua-Bjrn wasmemorialized in Landruimabk.Despite small sample sizes and poor preservation,the apparent diversity of furnace types, sizes and settings reported so far fromViking Age Iceland suggests that the first centuries after settlement witnessedconsiderable variation and experimentation in this technological realm. Similardiversity and experimentation has been noted before as a characteristic feature ofthis colonizing society's subsistence systems, architecture, settlement patternsand approaches to personal adornment.s3ConclusionEvidence for smelting (iron production) and smithing/forging (ironworking), orboth, is not uncommon in Iceland. Fridriksson and Hermanns-Auardttir, forexample, located records for more than 120 sites that have produced traces ofsmelting or smithing.s However, few of these sites have been tested, fewer stilihave been dated, and none but Hls has been systematically sampledvolumetrically to allow the scale and organization of production to be estimated.Despite these problems, some pattems are nevertheless evident and important forconsidering the roles that smelting and smithing played in the Viking Age andEarly Medieval Icelandic economy. Figure 11.8 shows the distribution ofexcavated Icelandic viking Age and Early Medieval sites with traces of ironproduction or smithing. Larger smelting sites,like Hls, are few in numbe and areknown, so far, only from the interior. A few smaller smelting sites, with slag heapsofjust a few hundred kilograms or less, appear to reflect household-level, short-term production and are known from a small number of coastal sites. Sites withevidence for smithing, but not smelting, are more common. More abundant stillare sites without reported evidence for smelting or smithing, but with iron tools ortool fragments implying the use and consumption, but not the production ormaintenance, of iron objects at these locations.

*. a9 Jan,Henning Liusen, .,Iron production at Dokkfly in Oppland, Norway,,, inBloomert lronmakng, vol.II, pp. 70_71; also, Rolfsen,..Iron production.,,'v rnese srtes (Grorp lBI) are defined as open-air sites characterized by slag heaps notmore than 6-8 m in diameter, with shaft furnaces and without ore-pits r sr,rrace-uuitthouses (Martens, "Iron Exfacrion," pp. 69_g0, esp. pp. 7t_3).51 Fridriksson and l{ermanns-A^adtti,:'kn*ing in lcerand,,,p. 15, Fig. 4.

52 Lasen, "Iron Production at Dokkflgy," p. 82. Even the clay-built, low-shafr furnacesfrom Msstrond and Heglesvollen were enclosed in earth-filled, slab-built supportingstructures, implying that the larger timber-framed surround at Hls most likely representsjust a modification of existing technological solutions in Nordic bloomery iron production.53 Concerning views on diversity in these different cultural ealms within Iceland'searly settlement and burial sites, see Smith, "Landnm"; Vsteinsson, "Patterns ofSettlement"; Vsteinsson et al., "Enduring Impacts"; and Hayeur Smith, "social Analysisof Jewellery."54 Fridriksson and Hermanns-Auadttir, "Ironmaking in lceland," p. 15, Fig. 5.


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202 KEVIN P, SMITHThis evidence contradicts the expectations of the self-supporting householdmodel and implies that there may have been considerable diversity across theisland in the size, scale, and goals of iron-production and ironworking sitesoperating during the viking Age and Early Medieval periods. None of the iron-production facilities known, to date, are located on sites identified in medievalsources or through archaeological correlates as having been the seats or propertyof Icelandic elites. Although future excavations may well show that elitehouseholds maintained significant iron-production facilities, the observations thatsome smaller farmsleads had small-scale smelters and that more have evidence ofsmithing suggest that iron prc,duction and ironworking were beyond the control ofIceland's emergent elites. Saga descriptions of blacksmiths and others involved inrelated activities (charcoal producrion, smelting) similarly include both non-eliteand elite men.55 This implies, at least, that the thirteenth- and fourteenth-centuryauthors and audiences of the riagas understood iron production and smithing to bedecentralized aspects of the economy in their own times - under elite controlwhere possible, but more often a part-time specialization and household, orcottage, industry. This accords well with existing archaeological data from theViking and Early Medieval periods.At the same time. the uneven distribution of iron-production and ironworking siteswithin districts suggosts that smelting and smithing were skills unevenly distributedacross the sociai lantlscape. The Eariy Medieval farm that was founded at Hls afterAD 1000, for example, had no associared smithy throughout its nearly 300-yearexistence, despite rhe earlier production of ion there, and must have reliedcompletely on other i.arms for the production, manufacture, and repair of its iron toolsand equipment. The early thirterenth,century Heiarvga sage,set in the same district,describes farmers tra.veling rzkm, each way, to visit farms that had the facilities,resources and skills to operate smithies or smelters.56 Rather than each farm havingits own smithy, this conjuncton of archaeological data and documentary sourcesimplies that the soio-econornic landscapes of viking Age and Early MedievalIceland were characterized by networks of economic exchange and obligations thatlinked households in relations of mutual or commercial interacon, if not economicasyrnmetry and dependence. I'hese views ae fa removed from traditional modelsemphasizing household seif-sufficiency and economic independence. opening thiswindow provides a suitable vantage point for viewing the economic basis of IcelandicViking Age and Early Medieval social strucrures in a new light.

IRON PRODUCTION iN VIKING AGE AND EARLY MEDIEVAL ICELAND 203

_ s] For example, He-iarvga saga, slenzk Fornrt 3 (Borgfrringa sgur), ed. SigururNodal and Guni Jnsson (Reykiavft, i938), pp. 288-94;The saga of Gisll, rrans. and ed.George Johnston (Toronto, 1962).p.114; Laxta saga, rrans. and ed. Magns Magnssonand Hermann Plsson (Harmonrsworth,1969), pp. 101, 230-33; andl'A1e-Hod," inHrafnkel's saga and other stoties, trans. and ed. Hermann plsson (llarmondswofh,1971),p' 82. Hall, "viking Age Ironworking," provides examples from Landnm.abk ofnon-elite householders involved in iron production and describes a Danish mnestonecommissioned by a freed slave who at one time had been a smith.s6 Heiarvga sag, pp. 288-94.

Figure 11.1 lceland, showing the location of Hls.

Figure 11.2 Map of Hls 5 and 6, showing the distribution of known ironproduction and features and deposits at the site.


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204

Beta-dh on Stuivts

Beta-Beta-

13 1

Beta-

t4 l 010+808I41717

Beta-47119 i

KEVIN P. SMITH

Beta-47118

CaIBC/CalAD4359 11

Figure 11.3 calibrated radiocabon dates from iron production contexts atHls, 1989-2000 seasons. Vertical line ar approximately AD g7lrepresents the "randnm tephra," which underlies all of the dateddeposits.FIls 5. Unit R

sC)OCalAD tOOOCalADCalibrated date

IRON PRODUCTION IN VIKING AGE AND EARLY MEDIEVAL ICELAND 205

l5OOCaIAD

Figure 1 1 .4 Plan and prohie views of furnace bases excavated in 2000 at Hrs 5.

Figure 11.5 keliminary reconsruction of a viking Age blooomery furnaceexcavated in 2000 ar Hls (illustration: Michle Hayeur Smith).

Figure 11.6 spatulate end fragments of iron objects from Hls 6, compared toa Viking Age currency bar (center: Buffalo Museum of Science,Kn718).

CENnHETEps


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206Rw ore n feautSquare pil felturesl

KEVIN P. SMITH

Shaft and snaptcd cntk

Sondw fonino i- -lffid|ff-''+- snall slag spheuids, snhhns heorth bases

Figure 11.7 Stages in bloomery iron production from raw materiar to finishedtools. Solid boxes indentify processes documented directly at Hils5/6 through material remains of the process itself. Dashed bordersidentify processes documented through material remains derivedfrom the process. Dotted borders identify processes and productsinferred f'or the sitc from ress immediatelv rinked residues.

Fumabases, sla1 hcap

'arge slag spherods, smithing hurth baw

Drop n brch pollenCharcoal prs

_ ---r:-"l__ .lrarpening,istnighning | l\hetsln

Hammcr seale, smthing heanh bas

Repair I Cipttd.nails, menttnivcslnlay/pattzruelng

Nolk, strapfrEmansBrcket parhNon-fcrorc scrcps

'What's the Point? A MetallurgicalInsight into Medieval Arrowheadsx

Figure 11 .8 Distribution of excavated and/or published Icelandic viking Ageor Early Medievai sites with clearly defined evidence for ironsmelting :rnd smithng.

AAoo

Chaprer 12

hgc sm.ldng conple6Smllsmeltjng sitsSbrhcr

Many aspects of archers and archery in medieval European warfare have beenthoroughly researched: the training of bowmen, deployment on the battlefield,even the legislation to provide an adequate supply of bowstaves. By contrast, theprojectiles themselves have received relatively little attention. Although arrowshafts survive only under extremely rare circumstances, arrowheads are notuncommon archaeological finds. With the exception of two notable stylistictypologies,t there has been little detailed study, or even publication of findsbeyond those from individual sites. In the absence of investigative work, many"facts" are reiterated from text to text without question, until the original sourcebecomes obscure. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the technology ofarrowheads by studying the artefacts themselves, and to use this to understandmore clearly the purpose of individual types of arrowheads. Previously publishedand unpublished material from various European sources along with further newmetallographic investigations will expand this database and our understanding ofthis important medieval military technology.This study sheds light on current differences of opinion for the types ofarrowheads used in battle, as well as their effectiveness against armoredopponents. In particular, I hope to determine the role of the long, narrow headsknown as bodkin points and classified as Type 7 in the London MuseumsCatalogue (Fig. 12.l,lower.)' For this type, there are two opinions, the first beingthat they were primarily intended for use against armor.3 The reasoning used tojustify this is that its narrow point delivers energy to the minimum area and is

Sitcs \ith rc!(crcd snilbing sg

David Starley

* The author is grateful to John Waller for supplying the eight arrowheads fo sampling.Thanks also to AVISTA for the invitation to participate in the "De Re Merallica" program,and to the Kess Foundation for their generous contribution towads the costs of attendingthe International Medieval Congress, Kalamazoo, MI, 2002.t J.B.WadPerkins,InndonMuseumMedievalCatalogue (London, 1940),pp.65-:73;and Oliver Jessop, "A New Artefact Typology for the Study of Medieval Arrowheads,"Medieval Archaeology 40 (1996), pp. 192-205.2 Ward Perkins, Landon.Mus eum M ediev al Catalo gue, pp. 65-:7 3.3 Peter N. Jones , "The Attack of Plate Armour by Longbow Arr ows," Chteau GaLliardll (1983), pp. 167-8.


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AVISTA studies in the History of Medievat Technorogt, science, and Art is aeries produced by AV{srA (The Association viirard de Honnecourt fornterdisciprinaT Study of Medieval rechnology, science, and Art), and pubrishedby Ashgate' The aim of. rhe series ir to p.o*Ji" rhe cross-disciprinary objectivesof AVISTA by publishing in the ar"as of ,t" i,irrory of ,"in"",i""nnotogy,architecture, an' art. The society takes its name from vittad (w'ars) deonnecourt, an erusive prsona of the 13th century whose autograph portfoliocontains a variety of fascinating drawings and descriptions of both the fine andechanical arts.www.avista.org

AVISTA Presidenr, 2002_2004Lynn T. Courtenay

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AVISTA Studies in the History of Medieval Technology, Science, and ArtVolume 4

DE RE METALLICAThe Uses of Metal in the Middle Ages

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