Lavteknologisk jernframstilling i Rogaland i jernalder og middelalder

This paper deals with iron extraction sites from the Iron Age and the Medieval period in Rogaland county, Norway. In Southwestern Norway prehistoric and medieval traces of iron production from bog ore have been rather neglected until some 10 years ago. From Rogaland county this paper records 45 iron extraction sites from the Iron Age and the Medieval period and 33 localities with charcoal pits which probably connect with iron production in the Late Iron Age and the Middle Ages. Five of the iron extraction sites are dated to the Early Iron Age. Iron extraction took place in shaft furnaces with underlying slag pits (slag pit furnaces). Fourteen of the extraction sites cannot be dated any closer than prehistoric-medieval times, while 26 can be dated to the Late Iron Age - the Middle Ages. On the latter iron production took place in shaft furnaces with slag tapping (slag tapping furnaces). There seems to be an increase in the amount of iron production in Rogaland from the Early Iron Age to the Middle Ages. But as very few extraction sites have been excavated, it is at the moment impossible to decide how big this increase was. It is clear though that both in the Early and the Late Iron Age and in the Medieval period there existed side by side both a small scale iron production for the farmstead and a more big scale production. Both forms of production took part both in the areas around the farmsteads as well as in more remote parts of the county