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Dear all, I recently excavated a small medieval smelting site in the southern border of the Jura, at 1300 m altitude. As we found a few plano-convex bottom slags that suggested post-reduction activities, we took a few sediment samples and looked for hammerscale. Among the micro-residues that have been extracted with a magnet, there is systematic evidence of spheroidal slag droplets (mainly), but also flake hammerscale; it's my understanding that spherical hammerscale could be related to bloom-smithing activities, but some of the flake particles have two flat, regular surfaces and at first glance, I would tend to say they are rather poor in silicate; on smithing sites, such hammerscale is frequently observed. From the particular context of these smelting sites, smithing activities seem however very unlikely, so I wonder if flake hammerscale should be expected in the case of bloomsmithing, and more generally, whether hammerscale is a clear indication of post-reduction activities if found on a smelting site... Perhaps somebody could also point me to a publication discussing hammerscale in smelting contexts? Thanks for any further clues, Sébastien -- Sébastien Perret Département de Géosciences Chemin du Musée 6 Université de Fribourg CH-1700 Fribourg