How did pre-Roman tribes light fire?

[THOaken]

Strangely, I can only find actual archaeological photo evidence of real flint and steels used in Scandivania by the Norse during the Viking age, but none for pre-Roman, Iron Age "British" people. Surely they must've used the flint and steel? Or did they only start to use them when Rome had its feet firmly in the door? In that case all flint and steels used by insular "Celts" (or whatever you want to call them) came to just be referred to as Roman?

I'm aware that there is evidence for their using the bow drill method with shells as a bearing block, but I just can't find any information about "Celtic" flint and steel use, no photos of real ones at all. It's just Romans and the Vikings.

EDIT: BBC History 'Iron Age Life' seems to suggest that we used the bow drill. Why use the bow drill when iron was available?

 

[bushwacker bob]

Flint and iron pyrites was used before man first smelted iron and friction fire is probably older than that.
There is no written British history until the Romans got here with their stylus's and written language.

 

[THOaken]

Flint and iron pyrites was used before man first smelted iron and friction fire is probably older than that.
There is no written British history until the Romans got here with their stylus's and written language.

I know this. I'm asking if there is any archaeological evidence (even photos on the internet, for example) for the insular British tribes using iron to make the actual steels before the Romans came. Surely if they used flint and pyrites before, they could craft the steel striker handles themselves as they would've understood the method of creating fire from sparks?

 

[tombear]

Would the other iron items in common usage such a knives have the right levels or carbon/hardness to throw a spark? The lack of dedicated fire strikers may not mean that the method wasn't used.

the earliest striker I've found reference to is dated to bout 500BC and was found in Afghanistan and I've been having trouble finding a Roman one that's dated before the 1st C AD so I too would be really interested to hear any info on how far steels go back in Europe.

atb

tom

 

[Stringmaker]

I know this. I'm asking if there is any archaeological evidence (even photos on the internet, for example) for the insular British tribes using iron to make the actual steels before the Romans came. Surely if they used flint and pyrites before, they could craft the steel striker handles themselves as they would've understood the method of creating fire from sparks?

That is a very good question in your original post.

Logically you would think that there should be pre-Roman fire strikers in the archaeological record but there don't seem to be. One interpretation is that all pre-Roman fire lighting was friction based, hence no surviving artefacts (unlikely). Another is that the "stone on stone" spark creating methods were by then so embedded in the every day skills and knowledge that faffing about smelting iron was reserved for high status stuff like weaponry.

It is a similar story incidentally to the Native American use of the pump drill. It is often incorrectly reported as having been invented by them when the technology actually came across with the first European settlers.

Maybe the presence of steel fire strikers can be explained in the context of the Roman occupation and industrialisation on a much larger scale than the native population were capable of?

 

[Big Stu 12]

The terminoigly of steel is what would be in question, and who would of been the frist to make Iron well enough to regulary control the amount of and how well the carbon is ditribited in the Iron to make it steel....

I belive that only certain Iron Ore were able to be made into a "steel" untill the process was able to be controled but MAn as such in the later centrurys....

 

[boatman]

Very good question, if iron pyrites and flint can create even dull sparks to light a fire then any sort of iron should do a better job, steel not being essential maybe.
Trying to think if I have any suitable wrought iron.

 

[Scots_Charles_River]

Flint and a harder rock ?

 

[THOaken]

So if the primary method was fire by friction for the Pre-Roman tribes of Britannia that means the Romans would've brought with them flint and steel technology and the natives would've transferred over to them? It's just a bit confusing because I've never seen a real life "British" steel handle.

Also... Let's say the Romans gave to the natives the flint and steel method. Does this mean the Picts and other northerly tribes not included in the Roman empire's boundaries were still using the bow drill?

 

[Stringmaker]

So if the primary method was fire by friction for the Pre-Roman tribes of Britannia that means the Romans would've brought with them flint and steel technology and the natives would've transferred over to them? It's just a bit confusing because I've never seen a real life "British" steel handle.

Also... Let's say the Romans gave to the natives the flint and steel method. Does this mean the Picts and other northerly tribes not included in the Roman empire's boundaries were still using the bow drill?

Since my last post I've been digging around probably the same sources that you have and there is a complete absence of any firesteels in a secure pre-Roman context. In fact, they don't seem to be found until the early Anglo-Saxon period (6th century).

Like you, I'm perplexed; I can't imagine a Roman baker stuck up on Hadrian's wall in winter being too keen on fire by friction. Again, that could lead to the not unreasonable conclusion that the primary method was stone on stone percussion, or that friction WAS commonly used but of course no evidence survives.

An excellent intellectual exercise to ponder; great thread for us historical arsonists.

 

[leon-1]

Percussive fire has been used in Europe for approximately 43,000 years. What were once known as Cro-Magnon man were using it, they are now reffered to as EEMH (Early European Modern Hominids).

That then means that at the time the celts colonised the UK they would probably have walked over the frozen channel during the last ice age, they will have brought the knowledge of using percussive fire with them.

I hope this helps.

 

[THOaken]

Percussive fire has been used in Europe for approximately 43,000 years. What were once known as Cro-Magnon man were using it, they are now reffered to as EEMH (Early European Modern Hominids).

That then means that at the time the celts colonised the UK they would probably have walked over the frozen channel during the last ice age, they will have brought the knowledge of using percussive fire with them.

I hope this helps.

Well, the point of this thread is the question of why we don't see the native peoples of this island utilizing iron in the Iron Age to make steel handles to strike the flint... It only seems to have appeared during the Viking age. Still, what you say is true and it's a good fact to learn.

 

[THOaken]

I've posted a thread on a historical forum. This is really quite confusing to me...

http://historum.com/ancient-history/60050-no-evidence-pre-roman-steel-handles.html#post1533913

It's very strange. I would've thought there would be a lot of evidence for this. I've even tried to ask Neil Oliver on Twitter...

 

[Toddy]

Do you understand Iron and it's production ?

Iron is not simply an ore to be smelted and then that's the total sum of it's useability. How it is worked, how it is crucibled, how it is clarified or given admixtures totally changes the end product.
The Roman world is Iron Age in Europe. Before the Romans the iron that there was was incredibly valuable and kept for jewellery. To waste iron by scraping it away to make sparks just wasn't happening. Especially when culturally other techniques were well understood.

It really needs steel to make a hot spark when it is sheared off by a sharp flint.....but then you still need a sharp flint and there's damned little of that in Scotland anyway.

Fire by friction has an incredibly long provenance, fire using pyrites works, but again, find pyrites. Wood we have in plenty, and better yet the friction dries out it's own coal. That we have fireboards/hearths of several thousand years old in Scotland kind of demonstrates more than clearly that the method was commonplace. They're organic, everything organic rots in our temperate climate, that these were preserved in quite specific anaerobic waterlogged conditions is a tremendous boon.

I'm not surprised that there are no firesteels found in the early archaeological record; indeed I'd be more surprised if there were any.

cheers,
Toddy

 

[THOaken]

Do you understand Iron and it's production ?

Iron is not simply an ore to be smelted and then that's the total sum of it's useability. How it is worked, how it is crucibled, how it is clarified or given admixtures totally changes the end product.
The Roman world is Iron Age in Europe. Before the Romans the iron that there was was incredibly valuable and kept for jewellery. To waste iron by scraping it away to make sparks just wasn't happening. Especially when culturally other techniques were well understood.

I don't know that that's entirely true. Iron was the iron of the people. In the Bronze Age, copper and tin were used to produce bronze objects that symbolized wealth. Bronze was used for the elite class and it became a sort of currency. In the Iron Age iron was used to manage the land. There's evidence of Bronze going out of fashion and there being an economic crisis. Iron eventually came to be used in many settlements by all craftsmen. They made scythes and other farming tools. So I don't think, "Before the Romans the iron that there was was incredibly valuable and kept for jewellery," makes a lot of sense for the Iron Age. That sentence applies to the Bronze Age, not Iron. Iron was a practical metal, was it not?

 

[Toddy]

Mince.

Iron unless it is meteoritic is technologically advanced.

Go do some reading on iron production.

Actually, come to think on it one of the Scandinavian members wrote a long piece on the development of indigenous iron production at the start of the Viking expansion period. They processed the red soil, the iron rich soil, to create the slag from which they made iron.
Unless it is further processed, that iron won't make a spark.

Iron shod ploughs only come in then. Until sheet iron was available stone and wood were used....right through bronze and into iron age too.

Toddy

 

[THOaken]

Mince.

Iron unless it is meteoritic is technologically advanced.

Go do some reading on iron production.

Actually, come to think on it one of the Scandinavian members wrote a long piece on the development of indigenous iron production at the start of the Viking expansion period. They processed the red soil, the iron rich soil, to create the slag from which they made iron.
Unless it is further processed, that iron won't make a spark.

Iron shod ploughs only come in then. Until sheet iron was available stone and wood were used....right through bronze and into iron age too.

Toddy

I'm merely asking. Why is there a hostile overtone to your words? I'm not saying you're wrong. The reason I'm asking you is because you clearly know more about it than me. That's the point of threads like these.

Anyway, so let's clearly define it. Did the natives of Britannia come to use the flint and steel as the Romans did or no? Were the Norse the pioneers of the steel striker handle? I can only find archaeological finds of Viking age steels so that's what's leading me to this conclusion.

"flint striker examples can be found from early Roman times (1st-3rd century), through Medieval and Viking eras, on up through the entire time of European contact with North America". I'm just asking if the natives of this island would've actually used such steels. Let's say they DIDN'T produce them... Perhaps they might've traded for already produced steels?

 

[tombear]

I'm really having trouble understanding the lack of even Roman fire steels turning up in Britain. They seam to find them in every bucketful on the continent, Did the legionaries and auxiliaries have to hand them in to customs when they hopped off the boat?

"No, no , no lad, we can't have these horrible little Britons getting hold of our advanced technology, they would be setting fire to the place as soon as our backs were turned, if they can find anything dry enough to catch light..."

This is a bit of a downer as I was looking for a replica roman steel for my first century Romano-British kit. Still, very interesting stuff, please keep it coming.

atb

Tom

 

[Toddy]

THOaken please read the answers you have been given. Frustration is not aggression.

Folks don't go to bed one night in the Bronze Age and wake up the next morning and suddenly it's the Iron Age.
It's a slow progression and accumulation of not just the articles, but the knowledge and skills to source and exploit resources.

Iron is an element, but to make it useable needs a lot of work. Early on it's valuable, very valuable, almost magical. Romans come to Britain pretty late on, and they're after crops. Southern England produced good quality and plentiful grain. The Britons used wheeled barrow like things to crop it; not iron scythes. The heads of the grains they grew are known to still have the 'break' feature that has been selectively bred out of modern crops.

You asked how early 'celts' (and that word is a pan european designation, not the modern one more restricted for the indigenous British Islanders) made fire. The answer is that they didn't use flint and steel.

By the time the Romans got here iron production was taking off and it eventually reached the stage where the vast majority of raw iron production in the world was from Scotland. That's where most of the Caledonian forest went...simply as fuel to fire the furnaces.

As I said, I'd be more surprised to find fire steels in the archaeological record of the time than I am that there is no evidence for them.

You might find speaking to Everything Mac and Dave Budd useful on the topic. One's a Geologist/ blacksmith while the other is an Archaeologist/blacksmith.

Toddy

 

[THOaken]

THOaken please read the answers you have been given. Frustration is not aggression.

Folks don't go to bed one night in the Bronze Age and wake up the next morning and suddenly it's the Iron Age.
It's a slow progression and accumulation of not just the articles, but the knowledge and skills to source and exploit resources.

Iron is an element, but to make it useable needs a lot of work. Early on it's valuable, very valuable, almost magical. Romans come to Britain pretty late on, and they're after crops. Southern England produced good quality and plentiful grain. The Britons used wheeled barrow like things to crop it; not iron scythes. The heads of the grains they grew are known to still have the 'break' feature that has been selectively bred out of modern crops.

You asked how early 'celts' (and that word is a pan european designation, not the modern one more restricted for the indigenous British Islanders) made fire. The answer is that they didn't use flint and steel.

By the time the Romans got here iron production was taking off and it eventually reached the stage where the vast majority of raw iron production in the world was from Scotland. That's where most of the Caledonian forest went...simply as fuel to fire the furnaces.

As I said, I'd be more surprised to find fire steels in the archaeological record of the time than I am that there is no evidence for them.

You might find speaking to Everything Mac and Dave Budd useful on the topic. One's a Geologist/ blacksmith while the other is an Archaeologist/blacksmith.

Toddy

Yes, fair enough, Toddy. Though I might not know that much about the production of iron I do, however, fully understand that 1) Bronze to Iron Age didn't happen over night and 2)the Celts were a pan European culture. I'm aware of the Halstatt/Le Tene archaeological cultures, etc. Thanks for the information.