Map of Europe showing the countries involved in the workshop
I returned yesterday evening from a workshop entitled Iron and Change in Europe. It was my first experience of a European funded, European-level project. The topic discussed: iron technology from the Iron Age to about 1000AD is a crucial one for archaeologists which is generally not given a lot of thought, even (ironically) by Iron Age specialists. We still don't in many cases know the answers to basic questions like who made iron and iron artefacts? Where, how, and why? The workshop may have been the start of a serious effort to answer these questions right across Europe.
One brilliant element was a series of ten minute presentations, one for each country involved (I gave the Irish one, all of the presentations answered the same research questions, you can see them in my powerpoint below), which gave a quick overview of iron technology and its place in society all over Europe and in lots of different time periods. These were also fleshed out in corresponding 2000 word summaries collated in the workshop handbook. Getting my hands on that alone was worth the trip to London! Luckily for everyone else it will be made available online soon too.
One brilliant element was a series of ten minute presentations, one for each country involved (I gave the Irish one, all of the presentations answered the same research questions, you can see them in my powerpoint below), which gave a quick overview of iron technology and its place in society all over Europe and in lots of different time periods. These were also fleshed out in corresponding 2000 word summaries collated in the workshop handbook. Getting my hands on that alone was worth the trip to London! Luckily for everyone else it will be made available online soon too.
The rest of the workshop was mainly about discussing ways to answer these questions through new methodologies, sharing of expertise, more workshops, summer schools, studentships, exchanges etc. One other important theme discussed was the dissemination of information about iron to other archaeologists. This is very important at a basic level of collecting the right information which can then be used to answer all our outstanding questions (slag is all too often discarded as rubbish, much as flint debitage was until more recent and enlightened times).
Hopefully the buzz from the workshop doesn't wear off now and the EU gives the convenors Peter Halkon and Vincent Serneels more money to kick-start iron research in Europe.
Hopefully the buzz from the workshop doesn't wear off now and the EU gives the convenors Peter Halkon and Vincent Serneels more money to kick-start iron research in Europe.
