Finds Friday: A human touch

A piece of iron furnace material from the LIA or early Roman period, found in East Sussex. The set of three fingerprints seen here were formed in the construction of the furnace.

A discrepancy in the build allowed enough heat to penetrate to vitrify the clay (process of turning the silica in the clay into a form of glass), preserving the fingerprints as a simple act of human interaction with the clay, humanising an industrial process.