Allen, J. R L. (2008). Romano-British Iron Making in the Severn Estuary Levels, Towards a Metallurgical Landscape. Archaeology in the Severn Estuary 19. Vol 19.
 Title The title of the publication or report |
Romano-British Iron Making in the Severn Estuary Levels, Towards a Metallurgical Landscape | ||
|---|---|---|---|
Issue The name of the volume or issue |
Archaeology in the Severn Estuary 19 | ||
Series The series the publication or report is included in |
Archaeology in the Severn Estuary | ||
Volume Volume number and part |
19 | ||
Downloads Any files associated with the publication or report that can be downloaded from the ADS |
|
||
Licence Type ADS, CC-BY 4.0 or CC-BY 4.0 NC. |
ADS Terms of Use and Access
|
||
Publication Type The type of publication - report, monograph, journal article or chapter from a book |
Journal | ||
Abstract The abstract describing the content of the publication or report |
At 15 main sites, and three supplementary ones, on or closely associated with the Holocene outcrop of the Severn Estuary Levels there is evidence for Romano-British iron-making in the form of various associations of ore, furnace lining, tap slag, furnace bottoms, and hammerscale. At one site ore crushing platforms, stores of clay, and numerous shaft furnaces are known, and at another a probable bloom was found. The iron-making on the Levels occurred chiefly in the later Roman period and at several sites was on a scale sufficient to support an export market. Mines in the Forest of Dean supplied rich ores, which were widely distributed by land and water on both sides of the Severn within the wider Dean region. The evidence of charcoal associated with iron-making materials points to organized charcoal-burning using small roundwood cut from local, probably managed woodlands substantial in area. Throughout the period both the Iron Age simple bowl furnace and more technologically-advanced tappable furnaces were simultaneously in use. A set of 113 geochemical analyses of slags from the sites suggests that a wide variety of local clays were used to build furnaces, and that those of the simple bowl type were less efficient and more difficult to operate consistently than the tappable ones, probably chiefly shaft furnaces. Bowl furnaces were dug into the ground using mainly mattocks or entrenching tools, to judge from the casts of digging marks found on the undersides of furnace bottoms. The operation of the two kinds of furnace, and the processes occurring within them, appear on geochemical grounds to have differed in significant details. Blooms appear to have been purified at some of the smelting sites. The fate of iron marketed from the Severn Estuary Levels is so far unknown archaeologically. | ||
Year of Publication The year the book, article or report was published |
2008 | ||
Source Where the record has come from or which dataset it was orginally included in. |
ADS Archive
(ADS Archive)
|
||
Relations Other resources which are relevant to this publication or report |
|
||
Created Date The date the record of the pubication was first entered |
09 Oct 2017 |
