MELANIE GILES

MAKING METAL AND FORGING RELATIONS: IRONWORKING IN THE BRITISH IRON AGE

Summary. This article explores the social signicance of metalworking in the British Iron Age, drawing ethnographic analogies with small-scale, preindustrial communities. It focuses on iron, from the collection of ore to smelting and smithing, challenging the assumption that specialized ironworking was necessarily associated with hierarchical chiefdoms, supported by full-time craft specialists. Instead, it explores more complex ways in which social and political authority might have been associated with craftwork, through metaphorical associations with fertility, skill and exchange. Challenging traditional interpretations of objects such as tools and weapons, it argues that the importance of this craft lay in its dual association with transformative power, both creative and destructive. It suggests that this technology literally made new kinds of metaphorical relationships thinkable, and it explores the implications through a series of case studies ranging from the production and use of iron objects to their destruction and deposition.

introduction
During the 1970s, the archaeologist T.C.M. Brewster excavated a pit dating to the MiddleLate Iron Age, in the valley of Garton Slack, East Yorkshire (1980, 363; Fig. 1). Within a shallow scoop on the base of this feature (originally used as a grain silo), he discovered a set of blacksmiths tools, packed in straw or grass: a poker; a paddle; and a pair of tongs. A basketful of carbonized grain had been placed over the top of these tools: 630 g of six-row hulled barley which had been threshed and winnowed before becoming charred, and placed in the pit (1980, 686). Until recently, this cache of tools, grain and pottery fragments would have been dismissed as redeposited rubbish. Latterly, Iron Age researchers have become alert to the deliberate character of deposits including domestic or personal objects and partial or complete animal and human remains. Cunliffe interprets some as propitiatory offerings, given in thanks to subterranean deities or spirits for the over-wintering and safe storage of seed grain (1992). Borrowing from earlier prehistoric studies (Richards and Thomas 1984), Hill describes the phenomenon as structured deposition (1995a), and draws insights into Iron Age beliefs and principles through analysis of the associations between objects or substances. Structured deposition is a frequently used concept but, to be useful, archaeologists must be able to distinguish between deliberately placed deposits and those which may be the result
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Figure 1 Garton Slack: GS9, Large Pit Complex: grain pit with blacksmiths tools in base (based on Brewster 1980, gs. 215, 216, 218 and 219).

either of natural formation processes or indiscriminate deposition during maintenance or cleansing activities (cf. Garrow et al. 2005). The careful placement of ironworking tools with the products of agriculture in the Garton Slack pit suggests a deliberate and considered performance, which established a meaningful relationship between ironworking and grain production. This paper aims to ground this association in terms of the signicance of iron in the British Iron Age. Drawing on ethnography, it will explore how ironworking might have been understood in terms of commonalities with other processes of production, specically those of agricultural cultivation and human procreation. In turn, metaphors which arose from this new technology made it possible to think through other domains of social practice in novel ways. Because ironworking and its products were associated with violent and potentially destructive transformation, they appear to have been used to negotiate moments of social crises or to comment on themes of fertility and death. I will suggest that the skills associated with the craft, and its transformative power, enabled ironworking to be drawn upon as a metaphor for social power and authority.

the iron age landscape

The interpretation of a new technology is dependent on a broader understanding of the character of contemporary social organization, scale of production, and level of specialization. EarlyMiddle Iron Age communities are generally thought to have been relatively small-scale, dened largely through kinship relations, though bound into larger networks of afliation
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through communal activities and longer-distance exchange (Hill 1995b). For example, in Garton Slack and Wetwang, Yorkshire, an open settlement consisted of several clusters of three to four roundhouses, alongside pits, timber storehouses and quarries (Dent forthcoming). Below the settlement was a large cemetery of square barrows in which these households are believed to have been buried together, reproducing a broader sense of community, identity and afliation (Dent 1982; Giles 2000). In other regions, the main unit of settlement was an enclosure, again comprising a number of roundhouses with ancillary structures (Thomas 1997). Elsewhere, communities were aggregating at hillforts, either periodically (perhaps on a seasonal basis or at times of crises, Collis 1981; Hill 1995b; Lock, Gosden and Daly 2005), or more permanently (Cunliffe 1995; Barrett et al. 2000). The traditional model of social organization during this period has, until recently, been that of the chiefdom (Cunliffe 1983; James 1993). Based on ethnographic analogy, some archaeologists believed that stratied hierarchies were maintained through an economic system of tribute and redistribution (Frankenstein and Rowlands 1978). Agricultural surplus (both crops and stock) formed the basis of cultural capital, maintaining permanent military and religious elites. Loyalties (and good relations with neighbouring, rival chiefs) were ensured through gifts and rewards of prestige goods, produced through the chiefs patronage of craft specialists. In this model, the smith underpinned the chiefs authority through the production of weapons and high-status paraphernalia (see Cunliffe 1983, 169 g. 94; James 1993, 53). However, ethnographic studies show that the relationship between a smith and the wider society does not necessarily involve hierarchical organization (Rowlands 1971). Craft specialization can also be a feature of non-stratied societies (Welbourn 1985). In addition, far from being a mechanistic process driven solely by practical needs and socio-political demands, metalworking is a highly symbolic act. Consequently, some archaeologists have characterized Iron Age metalworking as a magical or alchemical process, surrounded with ritual (Budd and Taylor 1995), and caught up in discourses which underpin or negotiate social authority (Hingley 1997). The hierarchical model of Celtic society has been critiqued by archaeologists who nd the evidence for redistributive chiefdoms in Iron Age Britain unconvincing, and reject its analogical basis (Collis 1994). Alternative models of society include peer polity interaction (Champion and Champion 1986), egalitarian households characterized by the Germanic mode of production (Hill 1995b) or segmentary societies (Hill 2005). Recent ethnographic studies of chiefdoms also suggest that authority is not simply an attribute of individual power but is socially sanctioned and reproduced (cf. Clay 1992). Archaeological funerary studies indicate that more horizontal attributes of identity (kinship, age, gender, experience and skill) also contributed to the reproduction of social power in small-scale communities. Because communities and landscapes were reproduced through specic routines of agricultural practice, craftwork was situated within other demands on time, labour and resources (Giles and Parker Pearson 1997; Cunliffe 2000a).

ironworking in the iron age

The creation of iron objects began with the acquisition of ore. In Iron Age Britain, a range of sources may have been used, including bog iron, iron sulphide nodules or even meteoric iron (Salter and Ehrenreich 1984). This ore had to be processed by washing, pounding and crushing, before an initial process of smelting (see Hingley 1997 for a summary of these
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processes, evidenced in archaeological case studies). The ore was heated in a furnace to create a bloom, which could be further worked by smithing. Heating and hammering removed impurities and produced shaped billets or currency bars of ner grade iron. These were themselves often traded or exchanged, before being further strengthened and forged into a range of objects. Agricultural and craft tools, domestic implements and utensils, weapons, shield and cart ttings, brooches, bracelets and mirrors, cauldrons, re-dogs and slave-chains were all produced from iron during the latter half of the rst millennium BC. Smithing was one of the few crafts whose timing was not limited to a particular season (Giles and Parker Pearson 1997). Whilst there may have been preferred times of the year at which smelting was carried out (due to the need to gather dry fuel and re the furnace, and release labour from other activities), smithing could be conducted under shelter during most months. The level of craft specialization in the MiddleLater Iron Age is considered key to the issue of social organization (see above). There is still debate as to whether smiths were full- or part-time craftspeople, and whether they were itinerant or dedicated to particular communities (cf. Wainwright 1979). It has been argued that if the production of iron and nished objects was beyond the level of the communitys immediate needs, a surplus was being generated for redistribution or wider trade and exchange, controlled by elites (Arnold 1987; Michaels 1989). Proponents of this model cite what they see as evidence for the control of raw materials, the existence of standardized production methods, the presence of dedicated workshop areas, and evidence for long-distance exchange (Arnold 1987; Ehrenreich 1991). However, the material signatures of ironworking are often partial and fragmentary, with different stages of the process frequently separated in time and space (Ehrenreich 1991, 69). Sourcing iron is difcult, preventing a comprehensive understanding of the scale and character of production in any particular region. Nonetheless, Ehrenreich argues that iron manufacturing and ironworking were frequently geographically distinct activities in MiddleLate Iron Age Britain (1991, 78). Iron was extracted and smelted in the Weald (south-east England), the Forest of Dean (north of the Bristol Channel) and the Jurassic Ridge (eastern England). Ehrenreich argues this represents the existence of specialized smelting communities in these areas, but that smithing was much more localized. He also suggests that ironworking specialists did not exist in areas such as central, southern Britain, on the basis of a lack of technological control and standardized production, a paucity of smelting sites, and limited manufacture for trade or surplus stock (1991, 77). In addition, he argues that there was no centralization of craft production, collection or redistribution on so-called high-status sites such as hillforts, since forging is found in equal amounts on smaller farmsteads and enclosures. Ehrenreich therefore supports the idea of heterarchical production, in which producers were either not ranked relative to each other, or at least had the potential to be ranked in a number of different ways (1991, 79). However metalworking was organized, both the processing of ore and making of nished objects was a skilled activity, requiring knowledge of how metal behaves and of high temperature processes. Budd and Taylor characterize small-scale metalworking as a high-risk activity: the outcomes of both smelting and smithing are highly variable (1995, 139). Smelting entails carefully judged timing; smithing skilled improvisation. Both rely on the judicious addition of different raw materials and assessment of temperature through ame colour. Careful control over knowledge of these techniques, ensuring its secrecy amongst a body of initiates, is a common feature of ethnographic accounts. In pre-industrial societies, such knowledge is committed to memory through formulae akin to spells (Budd and Taylor 1995) and embodied in
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the technical and ritual bricoleurs who had participated in previous craft events (Schmidt 1997, 11). For these and other reasons (discussed below), careful proscription of participants is common and both smelting and smithing are frequently circumscribed by ritual preparations and offerings (Herbert 1993), which might leave an archaeological signature (Hingley 1997). From their synthesis of metalworking rites in sub-Saharan Africa, van der Merwe and Avery argue that these are protective and propitiatory acts, designed to placate a variety of supernatural forces (1988, 245). Budd and Taylor believe that, in the eyes of prehistoric communities, smiths possessed occult knowledge, that they were both craft and ritual specialists, and that metalmaking was closely associated with politico-religious power (1995, 139). Ironworking, and smelting in particular, was potentially dangerous (Hingley 1997, 12). Apart from the noxious fumes, by-products and metal-debris created during the production of iron, the high-temperature processes created both a personal risk to the smith and a more general threat to the surrounding community. Intense heat, sparks and hot slag would have been feared in settlements comprised largely of thatched and timbered buildings. For this reason, metalworking (especially smelting) appears to have been carried out at a distance from other dwellings or structures (e.g. at Brooklands (Cleere 1977), and in areas 6 and 11 at Wetwang Slack (Dent forthcoming)). In other settlements, ironworking was carried out in less habited areas, as in the western quarter of Winnall Down, Hampshire (Fasham 1985), the eastern entrance at Maiden Castle, Dorset (Henderson 1992), the north-east of the enclosure at Bryn y Castell, north-west Wales (Crew 1986), or the south-eastern entrance at Gussage All Saints, Dorset (Wainwright 1979). Even deposits of metalworking debris, or hoards of objects such as currency bars, tend to be found in what Hingley has described as liminal locations (1990): boundaries such as enclosure ditches and roundhouse doorways were favoured in the Iron Age, with pits and wells becoming more common in the early Roman period (2006). He suggests that such peripheral locations (especially points of access and egress) were appropriate spaces in which to carry out the dangerous but also creative process of ironworking, and deposit offerings which symbolized this transformative craft (1997). The potency of these depositions drew attention to, and helped reinforce the meaning of, such spaces of transition.

metalworking and metaphors

Hingley argues that iron and ironworking were closely associated with the theme of regeneration (1997). In this section, I discuss how the processes, products and tools of smithing enabled people in the British Iron Age to think differently about their world. I will suggest that, as people made, used and deposited objects, they also made metaphorical connections between one domain of social practice and another. Human experience itself, not just language, is fundamentally metaphorical (Lakoff 1993). Metaphors allow novel practices (target domains) to be understood through correspondences with existing ones (source domains), generating new, or more subtle understandings of life (Lakoff and Johnson 1980; Lakoff 1993, 203). Elsewhere, I have suggested that the Iron Age communities of Eastern Yorkshire who buried the metalworking tools in the pit at Garton Slack may have conceived of death as a journey to be undertaken (Giles 2000). This metaphor is common where there is a belief in the afterlife, where the moment of death is conceptualized as a time of departure, and the deceased is believed to journey towards an ancestral realm or another world (Lakoff 1993, 232). Like Bevan (1999), I have argued that this metaphor was embodied both in the close proximity of burials to trackways and streams. The
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rare inclusion of two-wheeled carts in a grave may have assisted the departure of particularly important members of the deceased (Giles 2000). It suggests that metaphors are materially manifest in portable objects and structural features, as well as in speech, as part of broader social discourse (Tilley 1999; Brck 2004). As metaphors arise through similarities in qualities or capacities between things, objects can come to stand for people, on the basis of attributes which represent aspects of their identity (cf. Hoskins 1998). Consequently, the life-history or biography of iron objects, their lineage of associations, evidence of wear and repair, as well as appearance and use, are all important (Kopytoff 1986; Hingley 1997, 10). By living amongst things rich in metaphor, people are inculcated into seeing the world in particular ways, through the relations that are drawn between different domains of their life. Metaphors help reveal how the social world is held together, and provide a basis through which communities create and understand their collective experience (Tilley 1999, 10). By drawing upon and manipulating metaphors, skilful individuals could demonstrate a privileged understanding of the way that world worked. Since ironworking touched upon themes vital to social life sex, death and power the harnessing of metaphors related to metallurgy could greatly enhance these individuals political and ritual authority. Iron and ironworking technology may also have come to be understood through similarities with other productive processes: cultivation, food production, procreation and fertility. Once these metaphorical correspondences had been established, however, ironworking provided a way of speaking back to communities about these key issues. Agricultural production The analogy with cultivation was possible because of basic similarities in the processes involved in the production of iron for smithing (Hingley 1997, 1012). Digging for sub-surface deposits of iron ore involved actions and implements similar to those needed for hoeing, planting and harvesting, or with bog ore sources, mimicked the gathering of peat for fuel. The tips of ploughshares, hoe and mattock blades, and knives and sickles, used in both cultivation and the winning of ore, were frequently made of iron. In chalkland areas, ferrous nodules would have been brought to the surface in the ploughsoil, and their gathering after harvest, or during the manuring, weeding and tending of crops, may have been seen as analogous to careful gleaning or stonepicking. Before these ores could be smelted, they would have been pounded, sorted, washed and ground to remove impurities, actions which mimicked the cleaning, winnowing and grinding of seed grain (Hingley 1997, 10). In Herberts study of recent African ironworking, the Mandingo and other peoples often draw analogies between pulverizing ore and pounding grain and other staples (1993, 30). Implements such as pestles and mortars are commonly used for both processes, and women are often involved in this stage of ironworking (1993, 30). Williams notes that, at prehistoric Jarlshof (Scotland) and Lough Eskragh (Ireland), quernstones normally used for grain were used to grind ore (2003, 233), creating an association between the production of metal and the agricultural cycle. Roasting may have followed this cleaning, to remove impurities known metallurgically as gangue (Bayley et al. 2001, 10), a stage which parallels the parching or drying of grain. In the next stage, smelting, a furnace was charged with charcoal and processed ore, a process analogous to baking. The expertise involved in combining the right quantities of
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ingredients, and the control of air-ow and temperature in an upright draft furnace require some of the instincts of the good cook who senses instinctively what is going on in the pot or the oven (Herbert 1993, 30). In the Iron Age, both involved the use of upright, hand-built clay structures. Following the application of heat (using blowing holes, tuyres and bellows in the furnace), the ore (like bread) was left to rise (growing as a spongy bloom on the sides of the furnace) and the slag sank. In summary, ironworking processes may have been linked metaphorically to crop cultivation, harvesting and food production, through similarities of process and practice. Herbert also notes that one of the main roles of African women during smithing is the provision of cooked food and beer (1993, 30). At such moments, it would have been evident that smiths were dependent upon the division of labour within this broader agricultural cycle, and its products. Procreation More broadly, Herberts study of African smiths suggests that the making of metal evokes fertility, procreation, and the cycle of life and death (1993, 20). On some occasions, this is done overtly, through the anthropomorphism of the smelting furnace, in which dangerous forces are socialised into a fertile, adult female persona (1993, 32). The gynaecomorphic furnace might be decorated with breasts, beaded belts or womens scarication designs, with the opening of the furnace represented as the vulva of a parturient woman, seated to give birth (1993, 34, g. 2). Such furnaces are often prepared with medicines or adornments normally used on the pregnant body of a woman to signify her status and ensure safe delivery (1993, 35). The underlying metaphor of procreation at work here understands that the smith is required to successfully impregnate the furnace with ore and fuel, air and heat (Haaland 2004, 5). Where anthropomorphism is present, these substances are delivered through explicitly male gendered bellows and tuyres, resembling the testicles and penis (see Fig. 2, Herbert 1993: see gs. 20 and 21). In the ethnographic record, the gendering of iron production is also common. Where this is not symbolized explicitly, Herbert argues that it is achieved through rituals, prohibitions and proscriptions on those who attend the smelt. Importantly, this does not consist of a simple male/female divide (Herbert 1993, 5; cf. Hingley 1997, 11). A more complex set of criteria based on age, marital or sexual status, role, skill and lineage usually denes peoples roles (Childs 1999, 28). Smelters and smiths are usually exclusively male, and during the gestation and delivery of the bloom, they must be careful not to jeopardize its fertility by engaging in sexual relations with their wives. Importantly, the risk associated with this adultery (Haaland 2004, 8) suggests that the smelter has a close social bond with the furnace-wife, not just a biological relationship (Herbert 1993, 81). Women who are menstruating are considered especially dangerous to the success of the smelt, since such blood embodies a failed pregnancy; by sympathetic association, this state of being threatens the successful coagulation of the foetus bloom (Herbert 1993, 86). The procreative forces involved in smelting are also considered dangerous to adult, fertile women, and so for a variety of reasons, they are usually prohibited from attending or coming near to the smelt. However, juvenile, pre-married and post-menopausal women do often participate in smelts, in roles ranging from the making of pots for medicines, digging of clay and furnace construction, the provision of food and even the use of the bellows (Herbert 1993, 4, 29, 79, 216). Amongst the Phoka, adult women welcome the new wife of the furnace before its ring with
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Figure 2 Diagram of Chokwe furnace and bellows, Kaparandanda, Alto Zambeze (redrawn from Herbert 1993, gs. 8 and 21).

feasts and songs (Herbert 1993, 57). The Fur of western Sudan also use a millet our substance to paint and protect the furnace, which is described as analogous to mothers milk (Haaland 2004, 7). The presence of young children (male or female, especially twins) is often a required part of smelting ceremonies, since they imbue the proceedings with the procreative potential of the next generation. Children do not threaten the smelt since they are not yet fully formed and sexed beings (ibid., 60, 74). Meanwhile, the role of male smelters has an ambiguous quality: whilst the smith must service the furnace, he must also act as midwife to the delivery of the bloom, and sometimes adopts clothing or paraphernalia associated with women (Herbert 1993, 94). Herbert describes this as the paradox of ironworking: though it is a male-dominated craft, it must invoke an appropriate female procreativity to succeed (1993, 5). Herbert argues that metaphors of fertility and transformation are not simply drawn on to explain the craft. Rather, they are used actively, to make things happen (1993, 20). The skilful balancing of male and female fecundity needed to bring the bloom into being is not just analogous, like gestation and birth: it is gestation and birth (1993, 117). In Africa, smiths or their wives are frequently drawn on as obstetric specialists or midwives, and smiths sometimes have a special role to play as funeral specialists (Herbert 1993, 31). They also play important roles in other ceremonies involving transformation, such as circumcision and investiture. In their use of the storage pit at Garton Slack, Iron Age people may have been appealing to those who controlled other forces of fertility smiths, or the powers they harnessed to intercede in the cycle of agricultural reproduction. The deposit might have been part of normal propitiatory or thanksgiving rituals: returning things redolent with regenerative power to the earth. However, the rarity of such an offering suggests it may have addressed a particular crisis such as a poor harvest. Alternatively, these implements may have been at the end of their object life, requiring an appropriate burial. Whatever the motivation, it was the combination of object and place which gave this act its particular potency (Hingley 2006, 239). The deposition of
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burned grain with smithing tools in a storage pit was just one of many performances relating two qualitatively similar domains in a wider discourse on fertility, which was central to later prehistoric life (Hingley 1997; Williams 2003). The association between ironworking and cultivation can also be inferred at the Iron Age broch of Dun Vulan, where a lump of smithing slag and three hammer stones were deposited in a basal layer, rich in organic material. This midden was stockpiled outside the main entrance to this impressive stone-built structure, and, according to the excavators, may have been an important symbol of fertility in a landscape where cultivation of the local machair relied on intensive manuring (Parker Pearson and Sharples 1999, 126). This isolated act may have been part of a broader shift from power based on social exchange to power vested in control of agricultural resources stock, land, tools and people (Barrett 1989). Barrett argues this led to increasing social investment in the fertility of the land, and its human and animal occupants, and political authority became associated with control of the agricultural cycle (1989, 313). Symbols of fertility, like caches of grain or stock in their prime, became central to ritual practice and social performance. By extending the central metaphor of fertility, I would argue that the symbols and products of smithing also began to assume a new role in the restructuring of power relationships (cf. Chirikure 2007). Their power lay in a dual association. Knives, axes, ploughshares, sickles . . . all of these can be used to fashion things, food and fuel but could in turn be used to cut, wound and kill (Scarry 1985; Hingley 1997, 14). Hingley notes that, in Late Bronze Age hoards such as Llyn Fawr, weapons and agricultural tools are explicitly combined in a votive deposit (1997, 14). He also cites Plinys example of restorative and health-related rituals which employed weapons which had been used to kill (2006, 216). Currency bars, which are often indistinguishable as sword blanks or ploughshares (Fig. 3; Hingley 1990; Crew 1995), are perhaps the artefact category which exemplies the embodiment of both creative and destructive force. In a world increasingly concerned with fertility, objects which embodied this dual transformative power could be used to speak back to these communities about the delicate balance between life and death.

Figure 3 Iron Age currency bars: sword and ploughshare forms (based on Crew 1995, gs. A, B, M and K). OXFORD JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY
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Figure 4 Blacksmiths tools and weapons in square barrow inhumations, East Yorkshire (based on Stead 1991, R87, g. 108 and R154, g. 112).

The associations between ironworking and Iron Age funerary rites are therefore particularly interesting. Archaeologists have often made a direct correlation between the role or identity of the deceased, and a burials grave goods: metalworking tools were associated with smiths and weapons with warriors. Such objects may well have been personal possessions or symbols of age, skill or status but, alternatively, may be gifts from mourners, perhaps provisions for the afterlife. At a more subtle level, they may also symbolize important qualities or values, which for the mourners, the deceased embodied. In the cemetery at Rudston, East Yorkshire (Fig. 4), burial R87 contained both a dagger and a hammer-head, whereas R154 included a mix of weaponry (sword, spearheads and shield) and tools (hammer-head, tongs and coupler). Since both were young (1720 years old) and probably male (Stead 1991, 197, 205), their loss to the community in the prime of their life would have been keenly felt. These objects richly evoked an amalgam of qualities associated with adult, male status, such as strength and virility, as well as the capacity for violence. The metaphorical qualities of both the tools and products of smithing may have been used to mediate the transformation of the dead: using their association with regeneration to help forge the deceased into new members of the ancestry. This may have entailed dramatic performances: tongs from another burial at Rudston, R154, fresh from the smiths hearth, were wrapped in textiles, so that a lump of slag became adhered to its handles, near the rivet (Stead 1991, 79, 205, g. 112). Slag may have been a signicant material in its own right, redolent with fertility (Hingley 1997, 15) and the potential for recycling (Brck 2001, 157). Classical texts such as Dioscorides Herbal note that slag and metallic stones also had medicinal uses (Hingley 2006, 216). Iron and its by-products were manifestations of the power to transform material substance (both metals and human esh) and, thereby, provided a metaphor for power over life and death. They evoked the authority of the deceased in a world which pivoted around the control of fertility. At Minehowe, Tankerness in Orkney, this association between metalworking and death was made even more explicit. An adult female was buried in the oor of a metal workshop, which
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had been used for both copper- and ironworking (Card et al. 2005). This structure had been dug into the side of an earthen mound containing a subterranean chamber, accessed by a ight of stone steps (Harrison 2005, 13). An inner recess was also accessed by a set of stairs at the Knowe oSkea, another metalworking and mortuary site, and both chambers may have been seen as points of ritual access to the underworld (Orkney Archaeological Trust 2000). Smithing continued at Minehowe following the rst burial, and an adult male was later interred in rubble outside the same structure, covered by a stone cairn. He had died violently, with a number of puncture wounds and cuts to the left-hand side of his body, suggesting death from an armed confrontation (Towrie 2006). An infant burial was also interred in the enclosure ditch of Minehowe, and at the Knowe oSkea, on Westray, infants and neonates were associated with adult burials, near a metal workshop (Moore and Wilson 2005). Iron Age people may have thought of metalworking and burial as similarly liminal practices, since both were often peripheral to settlement. This may explain the fusion of different transformative activities on one site, which were all potentially dangerous since they involved supernatural forces. It also suggests there was an active and mutual relationship being worked at here. As a craft allied to processes of fertility and death, ironworking was part of the way in which ancestral forces (particularly dangerous or threatening ones) might be negotiated and controlled. Yet the power and authority of the dead was also being presenced and invoked to ensure the success of this craft. The importance of children as symbols of fertility in metalworking ceremonies has already been noted above (Herbert 1993). Gansum suggests an alternative reason why, in Iron Age Scandinavia, metalworking and cemeteries might have been linked. Bonecoal can be used in the making of carbon surface-enriched steel from either animals or humans, attested by the presence of burned bones at a number of smithing sites (2004, 45). He suggests that, in such cases, bone may have been seen as the medium of birth for iron, conveying the qualities of animals (and possibly ancestors) into the metal. The incorporation of old materials is also common in ethnographic reports of smithing rituals: the Basseri smelters, for instance, incorporate bits of old furnaces in the new structure (Herbert 1993, 36). Similarly, at Brooklands, near Weybridge, an Iron Age smelting furnace was strengthened by the inclusion of an old sherd in the new fabric (Hanworth and Tomalin 1977, 15, cited in Hingley 1997, 11). Building on this association, smiths may have played a special role as funerary specialists for things as well as people: objects found within graves, and also hoards such as Llyn Cerrig Bach in Wales, have been deliberately damaged. This may have been to put weapons out of commission or take valuable objects out of circulation (Bradley 1991). Equally, the ritual ending of an objects life may have also severed its lineage of associations (Hoffman 1999, 106). For the bending or folding of iron swords, or the disassembling of complex objects like the chariots in East Yorkshire, it is arguable that a smith must have been present (Northover, pers. comm.) They may have been involved in the unmaking (and perhaps recycling) of both things and people. Through this review of archaeological evidence, drawing on ethnographic parallels, I have suggested that the working of iron in the Iron Age (particularly the act of smelting) provided a distinctive way of thinking through contemporary social life. Since the process of making iron objects was productive as well as violently transformative, it could act as a source domain for metaphors associated with both creativity or fertility, and destruction or death. Following Barrett, I have suggested that as these themes gathered relevance and signicance during the rst millennium BC, ironworking and its products were increasingly drawn upon and deployed to negotiate key moments of social crisis or concern.
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Skilled crafting The nal metaphor I want to discuss in relation to metalworking is the direct relationship between skilled crafting and social power, dened in terms of authority, prestige and worth (Helms 1993, 14). Herbert notes that such power might be evidenced in a variety of ways in someones life: the successful growth of crops, the fertility of soil, fecundity of stock and successful delivery of children (1993, 23). Power also grows with age, not merely through the accrued wisdom, experience and the inuential network of relations which age brings, but because longevity itself depends on and gives witness to some degree of control of spiritual forces (1993, 15). This observation is particularly relevant for Iron Age communities, where mortality was high and life-expectancy short, especially for women (Giles 2000). However, power is not merely a static state or relationship: it is the means by which desired transformations are accomplished (Arens and Karp 1989, cited in Herbert 1993, 2). With this in mind, Helms has argued that complex or skilled crafting provides a powerful metaphor for, and embodied demonstration of, broader transformational power (1993, 18). It is here that the particular technological processes involved in the smithing of iron, as opposed to smelting, may have become important. Blacksmithing involves rapid, alternate stages of heating and cooling, processes which lend themselves to analogies with temperaments and states of being in people (Barndon 2004). It is a very physical act, demanding strength, stamina, and skilled, improvisational judgement: qualities also associated with leadership or chiey authority. Beating, layering and folding provided a set of action-related metaphors for other productive acts, which contrasted greatly, in terms of the character of labour, with bronzeworking processes like casting. The objects produced through ironworking also made a new set of demands on people (compared with other materials) which also had metaphoric potential. To keep blades rust-free they had to be oiled and polished, wrapped and concealed from corrosion, and regularly sharpened with a whetstone. These acts of care may have given rise to analogies with social relations which also had to be oiled, wits kept sharp or appetites whetted. Forging, hammering, welding, annealing, tempering and quenching: processes which we no longer observe on a day-to-day basis still provide a world of words with which to describe the creation of new identities, relationships, emotions and endeavours. In the Iron Age, they may also have given rise to colourful ways in which familiar domains of social life were understood anew through the nuances of another. Ethnographers such as Herbert have argued that the metaphoric qualities of this craft signicantly enrich peoples understanding of the emotional content of human life and provide apt expressions of power relationships (1993). New leaders are forged, young adults tempered, alliances welded together, violence and anger quenched through revenge or reparation. The blacksmiths role in the transformation of ore to iron becomes a metaphoric model for social transformation (rites of passage) (Haaland 2004, 3), and smiths and smithing are often drawn upon in key rituals or social events (Helms 1993; Herbert 1993). Perhaps the most cited metaphor is that of the smith-king, where an ideological-political link is forged with ironworking (de Maret 1985). Investiture may occur through the intercession of the smith, or else the new leader may take on real or symbolic associations with smithing: symbols of power in such societies commonly include the anvil, hammer and tongs. Haaland draws on mythology and pictorial representations to trace how this relationship accumulated cosmological and divine associations through Romanearly medieval Europe (2004; see also Hinton 1998).
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Skilled crafting in the Iron Age may not only have had supernatural associations, but relied on these relationships to succeed (cf. Gell 1998). In the African ethnographic examples discussed by Herbert, smiths frequently use ancestral invocations and offerings, appropriate medicines, charms or amulets, as well as sacred songs, dances or rhythms, to carry off the transformation from stone to metal (1993, 6575). Ironworking can therefore evidence the smiths skill in soliciting supernatural forces to assist their craft. One of the central arguments of this section, drawn from Helms ethnographic work (1988), is that the capacities required for skilled crafting such as effective relations with ancestors or supernatural forces were analogous to the traits needed for the proper manipulation of social relations, and successful exercise of authority. The local networks which smiths established could be drawn upon to achieve productivity and prosperity in many areas of their life (Childs 1999). However, one of the key testaments of chiey power amongst smallscale communities is long-distance acquisition (Helms 1993). Such exchanges speak of the ability of an individual to mediate with external forces which are not just physically but cosmologically distant, and can be perceived as mythical or ancestral (Helms 1988). In the case of Iron Age East Yorkshire, the procurement of different substances for composite artefacts, such as a chariot, or sword and scabbard, would have provided an opportunity for others to scrutinize this power. Both sets of objects require billets of iron and bronze, enamel, coral, bone, horn, wood and fur or eece (see Stead 1991). Whilst some of these were available locally, others could only be obtained through long-distance exchange. Both bringing back substances from these powerful domains, and successfully accomplishing skilled craftwork with them, would have provided further evidence of an individuals wider supernatural knowledge and skill. At Gussage All Saints, an Iron Age enclosure in Dorset, another pit deposit provides evidence of both skilled crafting and exchange. The lower layers of pit 209, located just inside and south of the eastern entrance, contained substantial quantities of bronze- and ironworking debris, in a matrix of charcoal and wood ash (Spratling in Wainwright 1979, 12549). This subterranean granary contained primary backll deposits of red hearth material and tuyre fragments, clay mould debris and crucibles from the cire perdue method of casting bronze, and four ne bone modelling tools used to make the wax moulds. In addition, bronze and iron scrap was also deposited, along with a tin bronze billet, ironworking slag and hammer scale. A nearby quarry hollow, feature 2, contained the remains of a slightly later iron smelting furnace. The excavators concluded that metalworking was a common occurrence on the site, which led to the periodic shovelling of debris into the pit after episodes of work. However, most of these artefacts could have been reused or recycled, either for new metal objects or grog temper: the decision to inter not only the debris of this craftwork, but some of the associated tools, was clearly a deliberate one. Spratling noted that the raw materials required for such craftwork included substances available locally such as beeswax, iron, timber and charcoal, but also sand, copper and tin from further aeld (in Wainwright 1979, 1412). These residues embodied both the skills of casting and forging as well as those of long-distance exchange. Sometimes, the act of crafting itself may have been purposefully designed to produce an object for deposition. At Houghton Down, near Winchester, a well-forged, pristine Early Iron Age hooked billet was found in the same layer of pit 340 as bulk forge waste, suggesting they were both deposited soon after the object was nished (Crew in Cunliffe 2000b, 107). At Charlton, Andover, a similar billet was found associated with slag and hearth debris (ibid). The act of forging an object bringing something new into being symbolized the productive and transformative skills of an individual, whilst the casting of freshly smithed objects into the pits,
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alongside the by-products of their manufacture, would have made these events both dramatic and memorable. The idea that things were made to be thrown away suggests a logic in which materials did not merely circulate for the purposes of accumulation. Since this economy involved non-human actors as well as human ones, deposition can be seen as a form of gift-exchange with ancestral or supernatural forces, in recompense for past assistance or anticipation of future favours. Studies of later prehistoric metallurgy inevitably focus on those aspects of ironworking which are the most archaeologically visible: production and deposition. However, we should not neglect the use-life of iron objects, many of which show evidence of wear or repair. Whilst we frequently acknowledge their extrinsic value in terms of raw materials, labour and resources, archaeological accounts rarely think through the effect of such objects on people, in terms of their appearance, sound and feel. Yet their visual and oral impact the jangle of horse-gear, the ash of light from a decorated mirror, or the whirl of designs on a shield or scabbard was an intrinsic part of their powerful effect. In his cross-cultural study of art, Gell has argued that objects which are made in complex ways or are decorated with dense designs exhibit a technical virtuosity which is scarcely comprehensible to the viewer, and is therefore attributed to the involvement of supernatural forces in the craft process (1998). He describes their aesthetic affect as a technology of enchantment which traps or ensnares the viewer in its intricate adornment (1992). In the Iron Age, objects such as swords in scabbards, chariot and horse-gear, iron mirrors with bronze ttings and brooches combined iron with bronze technology to make artefacts which would have captivated, dazzled or overwhelmed the viewer. The skilled nishing of bronze objects by casting, raising, beating, enamelling, or incising with complex Celtic art designs was complemented by the decoration of iron by folding, twisting or welding, cutting and lling panels of enamel, and pinning of glass, stone or coral beads onto the core object. This required signicant knowledge of the behaviour of different materials, and how to combine them successfully. Artefacts from the graves in East Yorkshire demonstrate that all of these techniques were accomplished by the craft artisans of this region, whose work shows Continental afliations whilst being distinctly insular in form (Stead 1991). Such objects brought to the viewers attention qualities of ornament and design which were not entirely local, perhaps reinforcing this notion of relations with ancestral or spiritual realms. In these small-scale agricultural communities, many chiey gures and smiths would have associations with this system of long-distance exchange and skilled crafting, either through direct involvement or through acquisition. They and the people around them were caught up in performances which could not exist without their mediation and transformative skills: performances including exchange, hospitality, rites of passage or even episodes of violence. However, their reputation rested on repeated instances where they were seen to make things happen (Herbert 1993). The forging, decoration and use of such artefacts were evidence of this social power and ritual authority but the objects themselves may also have been perceived to act upon people: possessing an agency shot through with these ancestral or cosmological associations (see Giles and Joy, forthcoming).

conclusion
This article has sought to reinterpret the signicance of the production and deposition of iron in the Iron Age, through ethnographic analogies with small-scale, pre-industrial
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communities. I have questioned the assumption that specialized ironworking was necessarily associated with hierarchical chiefdoms. Instead I have explored the ways in which ironworking might have combined in complex ways with notions of skill, power and authority, by foregrounding the performative aspects of its production, use and deposition. I have suggested that this new technology enabled people to think differently about the world and their relationships with it, as it provided a rich source domain for metaphors linked to transformative power. Smelting appears to have been strongly linked to fertility, through processual similarities with cultivation and procreation: domains of agricultural life which became increasingly important in discourses of social power during the rst millennium BC. Smithing, however, involved technological skills which were qualitatively different to other crafts (cf. Brck 2001). Following Helms, I have suggested that blacksmithing was metaphorically linked to authority and good leadership, through the social skills needed to procure exotic materials, and craft skills required to fashion complex objects (1993). It may also have allowed people to think through social change in novel ways. I have linked this to the presence of iron objects, tools and by-products in depositional contexts such as pits and graves, arguing that in these instances, smithing appears to have been drawn upon to negotiate key events or moments of crisis. The root of these metaphors was the transformative power associated with the working of iron, which was not simply regenerative or reproductive, but potentially dangerous and destructive. It was this dual property which enabled ironworking to be skilfully drawn upon, to speak to Iron Age communities about the fundamental issues which concerned them in both life and death. I have therefore argued that the distinctive technology associated with ironworking made new kinds of social relations thinkable: literally forging new connections between areas of Iron Age life, and fundamentally changing the grounds through which discourses of social power and authority might be articulated.

Acknowledgements

This article was rst presented at the interdisciplinary conference on material culture, Talking Objects, at University College Dublin in 2005. The author owes her grateful thanks to the organizers, discussants and participants at this session, especially Dr Joanna Brck, who was also mentor to the Post-Doctoral Fellowship, funded by the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences, during which time this work was developed from original doctoral research funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. The ideas presented here have been further developed in research seminars at the School of Archaeology and Ancient History, University of Leicester and the School of Arts, Histories and Cultures, University of Manchester. They have also beneted from discussion with colleagues working on later prehistory, particularly Danny Hind and Mark Edmonds, Richard Hingley, J.D. Hill, Jody Joy, Duncan Garrow, Peter Northover, Roger Doonan and Maria Kostoglou. All errors and omissions remain the sole responsibility of the author.

Archaeology: School of Arts, Histories & Cultures University of Manchester Humanities Bridgeford Street Building Oxford Road Manchester M13 9PL
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