10.11.2025Vortrag "Some Insights into the Results of the "TerriFer" Project: A Diahronic and Interdisciplinary Approach to Iron Metallurgy in East-Central France" am 17. November 2025

Since the 1980s, archaeological surveys have been conducted in northeastern and east-central France to inventory ancient iron smelting sites. These investigations have led to the identification of over 5,000 sites, very unevenly distributed across the region. In certain areas, the concentration of several thousand workshops has made it possible to identify major centers of production. Builiding on these inventories, a research program was launched in 2017 with the aim of highlighting the significance of iron production in Bourgogne-Franche-Comté from the Iron Age (800 BC) to the Middle Ages (around AD 1400). The study focuses on identifying workshop locations, assessing the quality of exploited materials, and analyzing bot regional and interregional exchange networks. To establish the chronology, surveys and radiocarbon dating were conducted. LiDAR data were acquired to estimate production volumes, and chemical analyses for provenance studies were carried out to explore the circulation of materials. The first results of this ongoing collaborative project will be presented