{"title":"New evidence for early pig iron production and refining technology on the foothills of the Swabian Mountains, Germany","authors":"Guntram Gassmann, Roland Schwab","doi":"10.1007/s12520-025-02288-2","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The investigation is focused on the remains of an iron smelting site in South-West Germany of the 11<sup>th</sup> to 13<sup>th</sup> centuries AD. Within the scope of a pilot study, scientific analyses of smelting debris as slag and metallic iron reveal lumps of pig iron, finery slag and early blast furnace calcium-alumina-silicate slag, as well as wrought iron with relicts of cast iron within the microstructure. This new evidence for early indirect process technology is concordant with results of contemporary sites in South-West Germany, and fits in seamlessly with current European research on medieval ferrous metallurgy. The results of a High Medieval smelting site near Ohmenhausen presented here are one of the first hints of a deliberate finery process for that early period of a modified proto-blast furnace technology.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":8214,"journal":{"name":"Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences","volume":"17 8","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.0000,"publicationDate":"2025-08-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s12520-025-02288-2.pdf","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences","FirstCategoryId":"89","ListUrlMain":"https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12520-025-02288-2","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"ANTHROPOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
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Abstract
The investigation is focused on the remains of an iron smelting site in South-West Germany of the 11th to 13th centuries AD. Within the scope of a pilot study, scientific analyses of smelting debris as slag and metallic iron reveal lumps of pig iron, finery slag and early blast furnace calcium-alumina-silicate slag, as well as wrought iron with relicts of cast iron within the microstructure. This new evidence for early indirect process technology is concordant with results of contemporary sites in South-West Germany, and fits in seamlessly with current European research on medieval ferrous metallurgy. The results of a High Medieval smelting site near Ohmenhausen presented here are one of the first hints of a deliberate finery process for that early period of a modified proto-blast furnace technology.
期刊介绍：
Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences covers the full spectrum of natural scientific methods with an emphasis on the archaeological contexts and the questions being studied. It bridges the gap between archaeologists and natural scientists providing a forum to encourage the continued integration of scientific methodologies in archaeological research.
Coverage in the journal includes: archaeology, geology/geophysical prospection, geoarchaeology, geochronology, palaeoanthropology, archaeozoology and archaeobotany, genetics and other biomolecules, material analysis and conservation science.
The journal is endorsed by the German Society of Natural Scientific Archaeology and Archaeometry (GNAA), the Hellenic Society for Archaeometry (HSC), the Association of Italian Archaeometrists (AIAr) and the Society of Archaeological Sciences (SAS).
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