Hunter-gatherer metallurgy in the Early Iron Age of Northern Fennoscandia

Abstract

The role of ferrous metallurgy in ancient communities of the Circumpolar North is poorly understood due, in part, to the widespread assumption that iron technology was a late introduction, passively received by local populations. Analyses of two recently excavated sites in northernmost Sweden, however, show that iron technology already formed an integral part of the hunter-gatherer subsistence economy in Northern Fennoscandia during the Iron Age (c. 200–50 BC). Such developed knowledge of steel production and complex smithing techniques finds parallels in contemporaneous continental Europe and Western Eurasia. The evidence presented raises broader questions concerning the presence of intricate metallurgical processes in societies considered less complex or highly mobile.