iron and lead on field

[david995]

hi , this is further to a discussion  i saw a short while ago

 I have a field with round  iron balls about 2 cm wide  and some bigger lumps,   also there is lots of white pieces  lead in parts and also  buttons all over  ,  so im assuming lots of occupation over an extended period ,

can anyone put rough dates when iron and lead working would start and finish ?

[Chef Geoff]

Lead is the oldest worked metal so pre-dates all others and so is difficult to date unless it can be recognised as an item in its own right, iron of course starts appearing in the Iron Age which in the west side of Britain is usually around 500BC thus we are plagued with over 2000 years of both in our soil, buttons are probably a result of night soiling which has been going on since the Neolithic so still no help but you can probably say you are close too though not on a habitation site

[david995]

Thanks geoff,

generally i have found that if finding siignificant amounts of lead also hammered coins follow and that is the case on this site and on a previous site i found lots of lead on.