| Abstract (english) | During extensive field surveys conducted in one part of the Drava River valley, numerous positions of iron smelting workshops have been recognised. For the past ten years, several of these smelting workshops, dated to Late Antiquity and the Early Medieval period, have been excavated. It was realised that the furnaces were not isolated in the landscape but rather that they were located in the close vicinity of settlements, always by a creek, on a small slope, and within a landscape that retains water, which allows the accumulation of bog iron ore in the soil. Due to the fact that the smelting process is highly complicated and requires good preparation as well as good execution, it is believed that it took place during summer and early fall. The reasons for such a hypothesis lie in the fact that before the smelting process could even begin, certain necessary preparations that included the collection of ore and wood, the drying of logs, and the preparation of charcoal, which were essential for the process, had to have been completed. Furthermore, archaeo-botanical evidence found within the walls of one furnace, as well as within the settlement, would support the same hypothesis. |
