Andrew David Sturdy Archaeological of the North KL255U

Student ID 5080099 Lifeways and Worldviews May 2014

1


Early Northern European Metal-Smiths:
The relation between technology and lifeways.




Contents page Tables and Illustrations page

Introduction 1 Table 1. Cremation Grades 3
Methodology 1 Table 2. Tempering Colours 7
In The Beginning 2 Fig.1 Tempered Sword 7
Shaman-Smith 3
Shaman and Technology 3
The Magic of Iron 4
The Case for Case Hardening 6
The Colour of Magic 6
The Colour of Money (Discussion) 7
Conclusion 8
Bibliography 9



Introduction

This research paper aims to explore the extent to which the technology of the Metal-Smith influenced the
belief system of early Northern Europeans. The majority of what is generally understood about this topic
comes from the writing down of mythology in the early medieval period, and concerns mainly the
personification of weapons and the godlike elite needed to wield them. But to what degree were these
stories mythopoeia, like the tale of Mjlnir, Thors war hammer, being just as made-up as JRR Tolkins
envisioned Middle Earth; or do both these mythologies have claim to a heritage reaching back to an
mythopoeic age that began with the conception of technology, and is still having a direct impact on the
lifeways of European culture today.


Methodology

The proposed research method of starting with the historic period and then descending through the
archaeological record for evidence to support written mythology was abandoned early in the research
process. As this approach was like trying to explain how a man-made flag can be found on the Moon with no
understanding of astrophysics or rocket-propulsion. Therefore the methodology that has been adopted is
one loosely based on System Archaeologys theorises of how culture can derived from the manufacturing
process of artefacts in a ground-up approach (Binford 1968).


Andrew David Sturdy Archaeological of the North KL255U
Student ID 5080099 Lifeways and Worldviews May 2014

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In The Beginning

Humans as predators are poorly equipped to hunt and kill in the natural world. They lack the jaws to crush or
the claws to gouge. Therefore to hunt and survive they learnt to develop tools. It is this ability to learn and
create that is hugely significant, for being able to visualise an object that has never existed to perform a task,
and then to create that object from the mind with only the materials found in the environment, maybe
critical to what is recognise as being human, imagination. (Armstrong K. 1993)

However, imagination came at a price, for it was not limited to invention but also gave rise to other
emotions like fear, courage, and maybe the most influential emotion effecting lifeways, empathy.

Through empathy they experience emotions in others, which led to the ultimate realisation of death and
their own mortality. Imagination had to invent Mythology as a counter narrative to death to comfort the
bereaved so that they could remain functioning and not become incapacitated by grief and despair at the
pointlessness of existence.

The basic formula of mythology is that once there was a golden age, a paradise, but people were driven from
it into this world, and only if you are good and do great things in life will you will return to this paradise
when you die. This formula transcends the timeline of humanity and is found in a vast majority of world
cultures, and is often referred to as the Perennial Philosophy (Steuco 1913). In archaeology this philosophy
can be seen at work with the placing of artefacts in graves as a deliberate action of a belief in another world
thats similar to our own.

How technology assisted in this empathy with the dead can be seen in the way it was used in their
treatment. For there are three main options in dealing with the dead; either do nothing and leave the body
to rot; go into death-denial and preserve the body through mummification; or accelerate the decomposition
process by cremation and avoid the anxiety of witnessing a family members putrefying corpse. (Burial may
be seen as a type of death-denial for although the corpse will rot, many cultures believe that it will rise again
at some point in time and mark graves with a stone, or pile stones up (cairns) over the corps to make sure
they dont). (Tarlow 2013).

Within the archaeological record of northern Europe there appeared a shift from burial to cremations in line
with the beginning of the Bronze Age. This technological development may have been in response to a
sanitation issue and disposing of bodies (Eassie 1875), but it must have instigated an adaptation in
mythology in order to persuade people to take up cremation. But what it also demonstrates is a change in
the people or person carrying out funeral practises.

In its most basic form a burial is a process of digging a hole, placing a body and then covering it. It requires
little foreknowledge or skill. However to cremate a human body effectively requires considerable skill as the
fire must first reach at least 700c to combust, and remain above this temperature for several hours. This
level of skill suggests the roll of a specialist. (Goldhahn 2008)
Andrew David Sturdy Archaeological of the North KL255U
Student ID 5080099 Lifeways and Worldviews May 2014

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Shaman-Smith

The requirement within a group for a specialist derives from its dependency of a sociological or technological
need thats impractical or beyond every member of that group to learn. Such a sociological need in
Palaeolithic culture may relate to the welfare and moral of the group by maintaining oral traditions, as well
as nurturing the sick, facilitate in births and dispatching the dead; duties traditionally associated with that of
the Shaman. Another function traditionally performed by the Shaman is that of keeper of fire, a type of skill
essential to the Smith.

Shaman and Technology

The ancient world has a great advantage over modern thinking in their ability for getting things done, for by
accepted belief as fact, it enabled them to make timely decisions unhindered by the obsession to analyse
what they knew. A modern scenario of this would be the belief that a wheeled box can transport people to a
destination. By accepting this as fact, the key is turned and the box drives away. But if the compulsion to
examine the box methodically until every component part right down to the molecular structure of the fuel
was felt; the journey would never begin and the destination never reached. Called the paradox of analysis
(Howard 1971), it can be problematic in archaeology research as advancing sciences beguiles the
archaeologist into becoming a disciple of science hampering creative thought. For example B Matthias paper
on Bell Beaker Metallurgy of central Europe (Matthias 2012), went to great length to analyses falhorne-
copper (copper-alloy) but to what end? What did it actually tell us about the people that made these
artefacts? Apart from an exercise in provenance, the data seems frivolous for it did not progress our
understanding of what we already knew. Where compulsive scientific analyse like this fails is that it
concentrates on what was being put into a process, against the more intriguing question of why was it put
into this process?

Joakim Goldhahn and Terje Oestigaard reaserch paper Smiths and Death (Goldhahn 2008) is a
comprehensive study into the feasibility that furnace cremation were widespread in northern Europe. Data
extracted from their studies is given in table.1 and it is not the intention of this paper to reiterate their text,
other than to say its evidence is compelling and it can be accepted for the purpose of this research that
furnace cremation took places that resulting in iron production, allowing the discussion to move forward.
A B c D e
Grade
Temperature
C

Classification Description
Percentage of 1082
finds examined
%
0 < 200
Apparently
Unburnt
Show signs of slight heat damage but not
burnt.
6.5
1 200 400 Smoothing
Imperfect cremation due to lack of
oxygen. Bones show no signs of structural
change.
11.9
2 700 800 Slight Burning Bones are burnt but retain pale colour. 28
3 1000 1100
Moderate
Burning
Bones are similar to Grade 2 but paler in
colour.
73.5
4 1200 1300 Hard Burning
Bones are white with a porous chalk
consistency.
37.5
Table 1. Cremation Grade
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Student ID 5080099 Lifeways and Worldviews May 2014

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The important satistic to take from Table.1 is that the vast quantity of cremated bones subjected to
temperatures exceeding 1000c (column e Grade 3&4). A temperature thats difficult to reach and maintain
on an open fire because of the cooling effect of the atmosphere.

However, serendipity has provided a possible scientific means to test cremated bones for furnace cremation
(Olsen 2013). A consortium of five subject matter experts in their paper Old Wood Effect, reach the
conclusion of a discrepancy between the radiocarbon date of a cremation and the dendrochronology date of
the oak coffin it was discovered in. There conclusion was that as there was no collagen left in the bones,
what had been tested was wood-smoke being absorbed into the bone matrix during cremation. They
conceded that laboratory testing produced the same discrepancy but this was put down to the furnace
conditions of the test increasing the volume of CO2 in the confine space that gave an artificially old age.
Stating that all cremations of that period were on pyres, they concluded that the only possible cause for the
old age signature was that the smoke absorbed must have originated from old timbers. (Maybe a case of
twisting facts to fit theories instead of theories that fit facts?)

Another case that may lead to future reinterpretation of sites is a description of a furnace cremation in
Davenport, Iowa USA made by A.S. Tiffany (Yarrow 1889).

The furnace appears to have been constructed by excavating the pit and placing at the bottom of it
the bodies or skeletons which had possibly been collected from scaffolds, and placing the fuel among and
above the bodies, with a covering of poles or split timbers extending over and resting upon the earth, with
the clay covering above, which latter we now find resting upon the charred remains. The ends of the timber
covering, where they were protected by the earth above and below, were reduced to charcoal, parallel
pieces of which were found at right angles to the length of the mound. No charcoal was found among or
near the remains, the combustion there having been complete. The porous and softer portions of the bones
were reduced to pulverized bone-black.

Points to note are that this was a pit cremation and that a characteristic of such is that very little charcoal
remained after firing. This poses the question whether similar pits have been incorrectly identified within the
archaeological record of Northern Europe because of inherent prejudices.


The Magic of Iron

The remainder of this paper will concentrate on Iron as there are contemporary written records of how
technology influenced the worldviews associated with this material that may compliment the research.

A detailed explanation could be given of why cremation-iron when heated to a bright red colour and
quenched (submerse in water), will turn the irons properties from being soft and malleable to hard and
brittle, but it distracts from the crux of the research topic. What is important to understand is the process is
ancient; it relies on temperature and the carbon content of the material; it works and is known as
Hardening. (Wheeler 1949).


Andrew David Sturdy Archaeological of the North KL255U
Student ID 5080099 Lifeways and Worldviews May 2014

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How Shaman-Smith came to learn this process was most likely an accident. Taking the mass of metallic
clinker from a pit cremation that had occurred naturally due to iron ore or pan being present, and using their
imagination they fashion tools. This led Goldhahn and Oestigaard to suggest that Shaman-Smith turned to
human sacrifice to feed the furnace for metal production. The example they give of aborted children being
sacrificed to build furnaces in parts of Africa maybe a reflection of personal prejudices, and it may be a
prejudice of this researched to take a more humane approach to suggests this act would console the
mother, knowing her child is contributing to the welfare of the group and its furnace will be a focus for her
grief and reconciliation. (A theme of the dead contributing to the good of the living discussed later in their
research concerning why cremated remains are never found complete regarding mass, concluding that only
a token amount was interred while the rest was scattered on the fields as ritual fertilizer).

Relying on human carcases would soon present a supply problem so animals would be used. In Norse
mythology the dwarven brothers Sindri and Brokkr are only able to forge Thors hammer Mjlnir after a pig
skin was thrown into the furnace (Petre 1998). So what this is saying is that were Shaman-Smith knew he
needed a body, scientists know the need as carbon; the result is the same.

Why carbon is so important to working iron is that carbon fills the gaps created between iron molecules
during heating, and sets on quenching to keep them there. Too little carbon and the iron molecules slip back
and the iron cannot be harden; too much carbon and the iron will become so brittle it will shatter on impact,
a term called Dead Hard. However there are techniques known to Smith that can take advantage of
variation in carbon either side of the optimum content, that are only feasible in the northern hemisphere or
at high altitudes for they are environmental.

Using a sword blade as an example; if slightly too much carbon was present it would be too brittle after
quenching to be useful, but just as the temperature of the metal is critical at quenching, the temperature of
the quenching medium and the duration of the quench is equally importance. To toughen (make hard but
not brittle) high-carbon iron the quench is often done in oil or sand, but there is another technique called
cryogenic quenching used in industry today, that could have been in use in the far north, for the quench is
done at extreme low temperatures, like quenchin a sword in the ice of a body of water and having to wait
until Spring to retrieve. (Connotation with this method and Arthurian mythology are intriguing).

However it is more probable that cremation iron would have had a low carbon content, which is in fact
desirable in the technology of impact tools such as axes, chisels, and combat weapons. The specification of
these tools is to for a soft core that absorbs shock energy, but with a hard enough edge to protect the inner
core and to deliver a blow without distortion or cracking. What the Smith needed to imagine was a way to
harden selectively, and he achieved this through Case Hardening.







Andrew David Sturdy Archaeological of the North KL255U
Student ID 5080099 Lifeways and Worldviews May 2014

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The Case for Case Hardening

Case-hardening technology is a process (ritual) performed by heating low carbon iron in contact with an
enriched carbon material. The enriched material becomes calcined by the heat and iron having an affinity for
carbon absorbs it into its surface creating a high carbon skin/case. The following recipe for enriched carbon
has been taken from the researchers notes as an apprentice blacksmith at the Army Apprentice College
Chepstow in 1986, the primary source being oral by Master Blacksmith Mr Neville:

4lb of salt, 20lb of leather, 15lb of hoof; cut leather and hoof in 1 squares, adding approx 1 gallon of
urine after he box is well sealed and placed into a furnace for 12 hours, take out and quickly quench
lengthways to prevent wrapping.

The hoof is important for as a source of nitrogen lowered the required temperature for absorption to take
place. Reading again the list and knowing the availability of these items to a Smith from any period, the
interpretation often given where hoofless carcasses are found on sites as feasting, may benefit from
reanalysis focusing on metalworking. (Canti 2013).

Once cased-iron has been produced it can be harden as already mentioned. But all that has been achieved is
a Dead Hard skin thats prone to cracking around a soft core. What is needed is a way to regulating the
degree of hardness; which they learnt to do through the power of the rainbow.

The Colour of Magic:

In mythology we find the rainbow represented in many cultures as a gift from god; the god Ishtar in the
Sumerian epic Gilgamesh gives mankind the rainbow after flooding the earth, as a pledge he will never do it
again, a myth shared in the Biblical story of Noah. In Norse mythology the rainbow is structural as a bridge
called Bilrst, linking this world with that of their gods. This life-view is understandable for witnessing the
translucent beauty of a rainbow that only appear when rain and sun occur together, must have had a
profound effect on the imagination. Maybe more so to a northern people for a rainbow also needs the sun
to be around 42 degrees above the horizon. With the UK averaging 50 degrees and its oceanic climate, the
frequency of rainbows is far greater the further north you go. Therefore it is unfortunate we will never know
what Smiths thought when they created rainbows of their own in iron.

By taking the now cased harden blade, polishing its surface until bright then reheating it slowly observing the
blade, soon the colours of the rainbow will start to appear one by one and chase each other from the edge
of the blade. By quenching at a specific colour sets the hardness in a process known as Tempering, but
others may call it magic. Table 2 (page 7) shows the colours temperature and possible tools that are
tempered to it.






Andrew David Sturdy Archaeological of the North KL255U
Student ID 5080099 Lifeways and Worldviews May 2014

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Surface Colour Quench Temperture Item use
Faint-yellow 176 Razors, scrapers
Dark-straw 205 Rock drills, metal cutting saws
Brown 260 Hammers, cold chisels
Purple 282 Surgical tools, stone carving chisels
Dark-blue 310 Screwdrivers, spanners
Light-blue 337 Springs, wood cutting saws
Grey-blue 371 Structural steel

Table 2


The argument for case hardening may also be made to explain the quantity of poorly made swords of the
Early Medieval period originating from Scandinavia. These may be the remains of the soft cores after the
case harden material has been eroded away. Maybe the Iron Age was a lot more colourful and swords of the
period looked more like the example of the tempered sword in fig.1



Fig.1 Tempered Sword by Zaereth, Swordsmith, 2013


Colour of Money (Discusion)

The reason why Metal was worked may fall into two groups, utility and currency. Utility produced items such
as plough shears, fastens and pots, whereas currency was in the form of coinage. The utility value would be
in their usefulness, but the coinage only gained value after it was stamped with a motif that promise the
bearer the coin could be exchanged to a given value of utility goods. The metal selected for coinage must
have the ability to be struck, but resilient enough to withstand wear, and its colour for colour had to be
consistent to give the currency credibility.

Bronze was the first metal of status and its colour became synonymous with wealth. But bronze was no
accident, it had to be fabricated by smelting Cooper with other elements like arsenic, tin, (cremated bone) to
produce the desire colour that the Smith intrinsically knew gave the best performance. Relying on
knowledge passed down from master to apprentice, Shaman to acolyte, a form of Alchemy that did not
Andrew David Sturdy Archaeological of the North KL255U
Student ID 5080099 Lifeways and Worldviews May 2014

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strive to turn base metal into Gold (Ag), but to turn meagre metals into noble ones, that happen to be the
colour of gold.

However what the technology of metal ultimately did was to give a solution to a social dilemma that may
have been brewing for thousands of years. Known as Aristotle prisoner dilemma (Aristotle 350BC) it runs
something like this: you are in prison with your best friend when both are told that you will be freed if you
confess and secure their execution of the other. The choices are; either you confess and gain your freedom
knowing your friend will die; say nothing and hope your friend does the same and carry on living in prison
together; or say nothing and your friend confesses and you die.

Logically self-preservation dictates you tell on your friend. But if everyone pursued self-interest in this way
society would abruptly end. Within shamanistic societys the groups survival is based on cooperation and
one duty of the Shaman may have been to quell destructive self-interest via warnings in stories, or punishing
radical behaviour with exile or even death. The success of this strategy may explain why the Palaeolithic
period lasted so long and why the Neolithic took as long as it did to colonise the north. But the advent of the
metal technology did not free the people from the tyranny of stone as the Oxford Book of the Dead states;
all it did was free a few to follow self-interests. In other words the Smith gave the means to widen a social
gap between members of the group to form an elite class.

Why the Smith did not seize this emerging material power may be a sign of their charisma. As Shaman-
Smiths they acquired authority through prestige resulting from their skill, knowledge and perceived wisdom
(Spikins 2008) (Jones 2002). Such leaders are often invisible in the archaeological record; for example
mahatma Gandhi Indias most prestigious leader died owning just a pair of glasses and the clothes he wore
(assassinated in 1948).

Those that promoted self-interest became powerful by the weapons provided by the Smith, and mythology
adapted to exalt the new leaders in a culture of hero worship. The exploitation of the Smith by the elite is
recounted in the myth of Wayland the Smith as his hamstrings are cut by King Nihad and hesforced to
work his forge; whereas in Norse mythology they are turned into a whole new sub-specie, the dwarfs. The
Smiths final portrayal is as the maker of weapons for Heros; when in reality he is making them for tyrants.

Conclusion

It is impossible to see how the lifeways of Northern Europe would have progressed without the incursion of
technology. Almost by default, the European environment provided the relevant elements and conditions
for imagination to exploit and modify it to its own ends. Initially technology provided practical solutions in
dealing with death, enforcing the perennial philosophy contained in all mythology and religion as a narrative
of death. With the advent of metallurgy the collective good of the group was shattered as metal allowed an
elite element to exert their self-interest and widen the social gap between themselves and others, (very
similar to how technology divides society today). The gold colour of this new material, Bronze, becomes
synonymous with wealth, and is still depicted today with gold being the colour of the highest denomination
of most coinage. What is apparent is that archaeological sites may have been incorrectly interpreted that
cloud the understanding of the extent of the Smiths labours, and reanalysis of cremation data and the
tenuous evidence of assigned to feasting revisited.

Andrew David Sturdy Archaeological of the North KL255U
Student ID 5080099 Lifeways and Worldviews May 2014

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