The Iron Age saw the adoption of iron as the dominant material for tools and weapons. Assessment of the evidence for ferrous metalworking in Scotland (Cruickshanks 2017) shows that while iron slag – waste from the smelting and smithing processes – is found on many sites, evidence for smelting of iron is markedly less common than smithing, suggesting it was a more restricted process. Iron-smelting was a highly specialised process, perhaps ritually charged, which went beyond the process of producing material for everyday objects.
The regular use of iron tools and weapons would have required blacksmiths on most settlement sites, even at a basic level for mending everyday objects. Unsurprisingly then, ironworking debris, usually smithing, is found on many settlement sites.
Broxmouth is especially significant for its early evidence of skilled ironworking, which include the earliest known use of steel in the British Isles. It is possible that Broxmouth was a specialist centre for iron production, and therefore a key player in creating the new social relationships and networks that defined the Early Iron Age in south-east Scotland.
Heald’s (2005) Scottish-wide study of non-ferrous metalworking showed that the evidence of said activity in southern and eastern Scotland was limited, and largely confined to enclosed settlements, specifically forts (Heald 2005). Again, assemblages from Traprain Law dominated, particularly when considering the moulds and crucibles related to the early centuries of the first millennium AD (Cruden 1939; Burley 1956). The sample has not changed much in recent years with non-ferrous metalworking evidence known from Fisher’s Road East (Lowther 2000), Phantassie (LeLong & MacGregor 2007) and Broxmouth (Armit & McKenzie 2013). Crucially, at the later site there is also evidence of gold-working from the early phases at Broxmouth which indicates the presence of individuals with more specialist skills or visits by itinerant metalworkers. Hunter (2009) demonstrates that 25% of sites (8) have evidence of non-ferrous metallurgy, slightly less than those with evidence for iron-working (28%).
Over the 1st–2nd centuries AD the use of Roman alloys to fashion new objects in local styles makes a conspicuous appearance in the archaeological record. Roman objects were not only prestige items, but also a valuable raw material for melting and casting into new objects (Heald 2005; Hunter 2007) a practice known across northern Europe. Two scientific studies have been pivotal for understanding metalworking processes during this period: Dungworth’s 1996 analysis of the production of copper alloys in Iron Age Britain, and Heald’s 2005 assessment of the evidence for non-ferrous metalworking in Iron Age Scotland through analysis of debris.