From Ore to Tool — Iron Age Iron Smelting in the Largest and Oldest Meteorite Crater in the World

Abstract

The Vredefort Impact Structure in South Africa is the biggest and oldest remnant meteorite impact crater in the world where various ancient cultures thrived. In this paper some light will be shed on the Iron Age, iron smelting aspects of the people that inhabited the area and the results of a laboratory study of iron artefacts and a possible source of iron ore in the region is given. A sectional piece from a hoe manufactured in a small bloomery furnace was polished and etched and subsequently analyses with SEM and Mössbauer techniques were obtained. The hoe has a typical cast iron composition (2.9% C, 0.1% Mn, 0.4% Si, 0.4% P and 96.2% Fe, all wt.%) and contains many slag inclusions with wustite dendrites. The Mössbauer spectrum consisted of iron (86%), wustite (5%) and oxihydroxide (9%) and the thin (200 mm) corrosion layer consisted of hematite (55%) and oxihydroxides (45%). At a furnace site, various slag clumps (26.3% C, 24.8% SiO₂, 11.3% Al₂O₃, 1.3% P₂O₅, 1.0% K₂O, 0.4% CaO and 30.2 FeO, all wt.%, average of four samples) and iron nodules (7.6% C, 6.0% Mn, 4.3% Si, 1.4% Al, 80.7% Fe, all wt.%) were found. The Mössbauer spectrum of the slag consisted of iron (7%), magnetite (56%), fayalite (2%) and oxihydroxides (35%) and that of the iron nodules yielded iron (28%), wustite (12%), magnetite (20%) and oxihydroxides (40%). A possible ore source containing 84% FeO, 7% of Al₂O₃ and SiO₂ (all in wt.%) and minor impurities is located a few kilometers from the furnace site, yielding a Mössbauer spectrum consisting of hematite (70%) and oxihydroxides (30%).

Retired.