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. 

The article critically examines interpretations of Old World ferrous metallurgical developments with reference to their consequences for Arctic Fennoscandian iron research. The traditional paradigm of technological innovations recurrently links the emergence of iron technology to increasing social complexity and a sedentary agricultural lifestyle, typically downplaying ‘peripheral’ areas such as Arctic Fennoscandia and its hunter-gatherer communities. Even in postcolonial research of recent years, the archaeometallurgical record of Arctic Fennoscandia is interpreted and organized within the traditional frameworks on the time, course, and cultural context of the introduction of iron technology in Europe, where Arctic Fennoscandia is not considered to have any noteworthy role. However, current archaeological research with new data in Arctic Fennoscandia disputes prevailing ideas in European iron research and shows substantial evidence that iron technology was an integrated part of hunter-gatherer subsistence already during the Early Iron Age (c. 200 BC). Archaeometallurgical analyses reveal advanced knowledge in all the operational sequences of iron technology, including bloomery steel production and the mastering of advanced smithing techniques. Therefore, we urge dispensing with traditional ideas and call for an increased interest in the underlying mechanisms for the transfer of iron.

The article presents results seriously challenging conventional frameworks on the time, course, and cultural context for the introduction of iron and steel in Europe, these for the major narrative of the development of civilizations indeed important metals. It concerns 2000-year-old finds from as many as 42 different sites across the national borders of present-day northernmost Norway, Finland, and Sweden in Arctic Europe, of advanced iron and steel production (i.e., contemporary with Roman steel production) within the hitherto unthinkable cultural context of hunter-gatherers. Due to insufficient frameworks for the undersigned as historian and archaeologist to interpret these findings through, we used archeometric analyses in combination with an arctic climate- and landscape/taskscape lens to reach new insights into the ancient arctic iron- and steel-making hunter-gatherers. These turned out to be particularly fruitful perspectives for gaining insights into the previously overall weakly explored social/organizational aspects of early ironmaking, as well as for the overall inadequately explored ancient arctic hunter-gatherers. We urge other historians and archaeologists to use similar methods to possibly uncover additional (“unthinkable”) locations/regions with advanced and early metalworking.

While reflecting over a defined research process, the place for our scholarly deed and focusarea, Arctic Sweden, emerge as an influencing factor so strong it made us deviate in a majorway from our planned research path at several times. It was partly about us having to relate toliterature dealing with our place/region marked by persistent center/periphery perspectives,where our 2200-year-old findings of advanced iron technology in the hands of ancient arctichunter-gatherers were totally at odds. The research process was also influenced by the place interms of its legacies of (and partly continued) marginalization (in relation to the rest of Sweden)and large-scale and long-term national (to part also international) exploitation of its naturalresources, which not least affect/ed the indigenous Sami and other minorities of the region.Today, the minorities’ quest for recognition is expressed in strong ethnopolitical currentsincluding, not least, ambitions to re-write history/fill the gaps in history writing, meaningchallenging expectations can emerge of historians/archaeologists. Groups striving forrecognition is a global postcolonial phenomenon, and we discuss consequences arising fromthis for the individual historian and for history writing. We also give examples of fruitfulinterdisciplinary ways out when literature has (too) little to contribute to the interpretation ofyour findings.