Reconstructing Ironworking on the Fifth- and Sixth-Century Osaka Plain

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Excavated sporadically for over 30 years, Ogata in Kashiwara City and Mori in Katano City are the largest-scale Kofun period ironworking sites in Osaka Prefecture, Japan. Large numbers of forging slags have been unearthed from both sites, which alongside partially preserved hearth features, provide the bulk of evidence for ironworking. Following methods developed by French archaeometallurgists, novel analyses of these forge slags correlate different slag materials with different forging activities. This has allowed for more precise reconstructions of the kinds and range of ironworking activities at these two sites. This presentation combines these new analyses with new radiocarbon dates, charcoal analysis, and legacy data from prior slag analyses to illustrate the contrast in ironworking technologies at the two sites as well as differences in fuel preferences. Further, comparison with legacy paleoenvironmental data illuminates the relationship between the ironworkers at each site and their local forest landscapes.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)   •
• SAA 2021: General Sessions

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 33056