Jim, at the time you visited my site in Parishville Center, NY with
Marty Snye and Ken Schwarz, the group of you agreed that the forge scale
feature in front of the stone forge base indicated that I was very near
the anvil post-hole. Indeed, I later found it covered by scale that had
washed over it, presumably after the shop was dismantled. It was at arms
length from the front of the forge and to the right, and looked almost
exactly like what Dan described. It was surprisingly shallow.

The Parishville Center shop floor was largely dirt. profiles showed
that traffic had hollowed out the floor into a shallow basin and the
smith's feet had worn a "trackway" between  the anvil and, presumably,
the vise. The floor had been resurfaced at least once and the shop
enlarged. The charcoal pile was then moved to the new end of the shop
and both fuel piles were clearly visible as lense-shaped features. Some
areas had had a partial wooden floor. The shoeing floor was identifiable
from the large concentration of nails and relatively large concentration
of discarded shoes.

The adjacent wagon shop had had a very substantial wooden floor, made
of planks six inches thick. This shop also had a forge. Both shops also
had heating stoves identified by mortared brick concentrations. The
forge bricks had no mortar, but had patches of fireclay on them
instead.

>>> Timothy James Scarlett <[log in to unmask]> 11/05/04 03:47PM >>>
I agree with Chris! Also Daniel- I've noticed several examples of metal
or
brick covers overtop of wooden floor boards to protect them.  What in
your
excavation provides you with such clues?
Tim Scarlett


> Daniel,
>         In your discussion I was surprised to see no mention of
> hammer-scale.
> This is a mixture of flat flakes of iron oxide shed from the metal as
it
> is heated and cooled, and spherical particles formed by  the
> solidification during flight of the spray of molten iron oxide (plus
> flux if used) formed when the work piece is struck by the hammer. As
the
> temperature of the work piece needs to at or close to the melting
> temperature of iron oxide, a high proportion of spherical hammer
scale
> is indicative of welding rather than simple forging.  Normally,
> hammer-scale predominates around the anvil compared with the hearth
area
> which has a higher proportion of slag and clinker. A number of
studies
> on Medieval site in Britain have been able to locate the anvil
locations
> on the basis of debris studies. The first being Gerry McDonnell's
study
> of the forge at Durton Basset Warwickshire, but unfortunately, I
have
> not seen a good British study of a post medieval smithy. This may be
> because these have largely been considered as an inconvenience to be
> cleared out of the way before getting to the 'real' archaeology.
>
>
> --
> Chris Salter,
> Oxford Materials Characterisation Service,
> &
> Material Science-based Archaeology Group,
> &
> Electron Microscopy Research Support Group,
> Oxford University Begbroke Science Park,
> Sandy Lane, Yarnton, Oxford, OX5 1PF
> Tel 01865 283722, EPMA 283741, Mobile 07776031608
>


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