About hammer scale vs products of iron corrosion, hammer scale is extremely
thin and fragile in my experience. The excavators of the John Deere
blacksmith shop (c. 1840)  at Grand Detour, Illinois commented on finding an
area of red stain around the anvil but there was no slaggy or crusty layer
present.  The hammer scale I am familiar with from forging activities is
thinner than mica platelets for instance, and flies around at a hammer blow.
It is fragile and not at all resistant to any kind of mechanical force like
being stepped on and will often crumble when being brushed of an anvil or
trip hammer die.
 
 
At 09:07 AM 4/29/97 +1100, you wrote:
>Chris Salter wrote
>
>>
>>This sounds like corroded smithy floor debris. Originally it would have
>>been a mixture of fuel, hammer-scale, the odd small lump of slag and
>>occasional off-cut of metal. Or it is simply a hard-pan concretion due to
>>iron leaching out of the metal and slag in the context.
>>
>
>How is hammer-scale defined, and what are the ways of telling the
>difference between it and the normal flakes of de-laminating iron
>associated with corroding artefacts that one generally finds in
>excavations?
>
>Dr Susan Lawrence
>Department of Archaeology
>La Trobe University
>Bundoora, Victoria
>Australia 3083
>
>ph 03 9479 1790
>fax 03 9479 1881
>
>