Themed Sessions

These sessions incorporating the latest research being carried out in all regions, not excluding Europe, on both theoretical, technological, and environmental topics, to ensure maximum coverage of all major anthropological considerations concerning the study of iron production:

• Invention, Innovation, Inspiration (to reconsider common assumptions about the evolution of technology, such as the impetus behind innovations and adoptions visible within the archaeological record, and the development of technological processes from simple to more complex; also concerning the origin(s), adoption, development, expansion, and societal and environmental impact of iron technology)
  Chair: Dr Gill Juleff, Lecturer, Department of Archaeology, University of Exeter


• Theoretical Approaches (to discuss and reconsider wider anthropological issues such as definitions of technology; the embedded nature of technology; technological style; technological variation, change and development; technical and social adaptation; craft specialisation, cross-craft interaction; human dimensions: technological choice, organisation of production, accessing technical gestures, techniques of the self)
  Chair: Professor Bryan Pfaffenberger, Department of Science, Technology, and Society, University of Virginia;
  Co-chair: Dr Pierre Lemonnier, Directeur de Recherche, Centre de Recherche et de Documentation sur l'Océanie (CREDO), CNRS, France


• Scientific Approaches (to discuss archaeological and technological issues such as dating, remote sensing, mapping, experiments; application of multidisciplinary approaches to the study of prehistoric iron production; the application of (new) scientific techniques to the study of iron production debris (e.g. slag, technical ceramics, and associated archaeological remains), on iron artefacts (provenancing by slag inclusions; interpretation of resulting analytical data on a anthropological scale)
  Chair: Professor Vincent Serneels, Department of Geosciences, University of Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland


• Environmental Considerations (to discuss, and environmental considerations (e.g. procurement of resources, deforestation, erosion, and pollution; geological, geophysical and palaeoecological research); the evolving influences of iron on society and on the physical environment;
  Chair: Professor Don Wagner, Chinese Science, Technology, History, Archaeology, Nordic Institute of Asian Studies, Copenhagen, Denmark.