Recently the merits of pits and soap making were discussed.
 
How about pits in blacksmith shop floors? Recently, we excavated parts of two bl
acksmith shops. One (dating from 1895 to 1906) had at least five pits in its flo
or. The pits contained cinders and scrap iron. Some edges were reddened by expos
ure to heat.
We also found a posthole for an anvil and a partially buried wooden barrel, pres
umable used for a cooling barrel. A wooden "trough" was set into the floor of th
is shop, leading to the area next to the anvil posthole.
 
A second shop was poorly preserved, however we had several pits in its floor are
a, again filled with cinders and iron artifacts.
 
Any ideas about what the other pits might be? One possibility is that the forge
was over the pits. What about the wooden trough? Could this have been used to br
ing air to the forge, possibly with a bellows attached to one the other end (whi
ch would have been outside of the blacksmith shop)?
 
Homer Thiel