Although few iron objects have been recovered from excavations – for example only 25% of excavated sites in East Lothian have recovered iron objects – evidence of working with iron is shown by toolmarks on bone objects and ironworking residue (Hunter 2013). Thus, we should think of iron objects as widely used on most southern Scottish sites, if albeit a valued resource.
East Lothian again is a useful case study in terms of site assemblages. Regards actual iron objects Traprain Law provides the dominant assemblage in the region (Burley 1956) but as Hunter (2013) demonstrates there are other significant assemblages. Twenty nine iron objects from Broxmouth are of Iron Age date and argued to be dominated by everyday artefacts such as tools, fittings and ornaments, the small size of the assemblage being all too typical of Iron Age sites of the first millennium BC (Hunter 2013). The two Archerfield caves produced a spear, knife and ring. The five finds from Dryburn Bridge included a sickle and a knife (Hunter 2007). In the south-east it is clear that with the exception of Traprain Law all site assemblages are partial in the extreme.
Phantassie (LeLong & MacGregor 2007) produced a small but striking assemblage which included a draw plate, linch pin and ard tip as well as pin shank. Two of these objects are of particular note. The decorated linch pin, the only one known from Scotland, would have secured a wheel on a chariot and probably dates to around the third to first century BC. The drawplate is a precision tool used to manufacture wire for use in fine metalworking. This is the only second example known from Scotland. This was a specialist metal-working technology and the draw plate shows that the inhabitants of Phantassie were using advanced metal-smithing techniques. These two finds from Phantassie clearly show that some iron objects found on settlement sites, away from Traprain Law, were not just mundane everyday objects, suggesting a wider range of iron objects and uses circulating in the Iron Age.
Our understanding of iron objects actually comes not from settlement sites but from hoards (Hunter 1997). As Harding (2017) reminds us, the Celtic fascination with votive deposits in watery locations – lakes, rivers, marshes and wells – is widely attested archaeologically and in the documentary sources. The votive deposits from Blackburn Mill, Berwickshire and Eckford, Roxburghshire (Piggott 1953) are exceptional examples, both attributed to the later first or second centuries AD. Importantly, the hoard contain Roman products deposited with native Iron Age types.