Using mineral magnetism to characterise ironworking and to detect its evidence in peat bogs

Explaining the evolution of ironmaking recipes – An example from northwest Wales

“…Radiocarbon dating and dendrochronology align well with the historical records, indicating that production was carried out during three phases: (1) AD 1355-1365; (2) AD 1376-1392; and (3) AD 1407-1419 Mighall et al, 2009). Llwyn Du was a small to medium scale bloomery that yielded some 55 tons of bar iron and about 200 tons of slag across its total (Smith, 1995).…”

Early agriculture and palaeoenvironmental history in the North of the Iberian Peninsula: a multi-proxy analysis of the Monte Areo mire (Asturias, Spain)

“…Peatlands, for example, have been investigated for more than a century due to their potential for reconstructing climate and past vegetation changes (Bindler, 2006). Different authors have previously stressed the need to use chemical data to complement diatoms or pollen records (Warner and Bunting, 1996;Waller, 1998), and recent investigations using a multi-proxy approach in peat records have been successful in linking prehistoric forest clearances to enhanced soil erosion (Hölzer and Hölzer, 1998;Martínez Cortizas et al, 2005) or to mining and metallurgy activities (Galop et al, 2001;Monna et al, 2004;Mighall et al, 2006b), sometimes combined with a laboratory methodological approach (Mighall et al, 2009). Thus multi-proxy investigations of the same archives e ideally the same cores e offer a great potential for identifying and interpreting the impact of early human activities, such as the adoption of agriculture.…”

The Role of Metallurgy in Transforming Global Forests.

“…The geochemistry of soils and cored deposits has been explored in European and African contexts to examine metal working intensity and impact (Baron et al 2005;Brncic et al 2007;Jouffroy-Babicot et al 2007;Mighall et al 2009;Fyfe et al 2013). Geochemical analysis of dated cores not only provides a chronological and quantifiable record of changing metal concentrations (which can be used to estimate the intensity and geographical spread of metal working through time), but pollen obtained from the same sample columns can also be used as an indicator of vegetation cover in the immediate vicinity.…”