Regional variations in bloomery smelting slag of the iron age and Romano-British periods

This study highlights regional variation in the composition of iron-smelting slag produced in England prior to the medieval period and attempts to link slag composition to the type of ore smelted. For many sites, the slag compositions were consistent with the use of limonite ore, but there is evidence that siderite ore was smelted at sites in Sussex in the late Iron Age/Romano-British periods. A compositional comparison of smelting slags and slag inclusions in Iron Age currency bars, using data from Hedges and Salter (1979), illustrates the potential of smelting slag compositional data in provenance studies of early iron objects.