A little-known extractive process: Iron smelting in natural-draft furnaces

Over the last twenty years, there has been a discernible increase in the number of scholars who have focused their research on metal production, working and use in antiquity, a field of study which has come to be known as archaeometallurgy. Materials scientists and conservators have worked primarily in the laboratory while archaeologists have conducted fieldwork geared to the study of metal technology in a cultural context with laboratory analysis as one portion of the interpretive program.