Researchers have unearthed a “master blacksmith’s” Iron Age workshop—complete with forging equipment and metal fragments—in the English countryside. Dating back some 2,700 years, the discovery sheds new light on the beginning of the region’s rich metalworking history.
The blacksmith’s workshop—or “smithy”—was found during a dig in Oxfordshire by the excavation company DigVentures. Radiocarbon dating suggests it was likely active between 770 and 515 B.C.E., near the beginning of Britain’s Iron Age. Researchers tell the Guardian’s Dalya Alberge they are “completely blown away” by the site’s age and contents.
Interesting stuff. I wish they went into greater detail about what exactly makes a smithy “High-End” but I understand as a former archaeologist, a site can give you a sense of its relative scale and importance, simply in relation to what is common.
Read the whole thing at Smiothsonian.com…