The site of Habaqila is located in the area between Inner Mongolia and Liaoning provinces and dated to the 13th–11th centuries BC. It was identified as a metal production workshop of the Lower Xiajiadian Culture and revealed abundant metallurgical remains, including ore fragments, slags, technical ceramics, and stone implements. Scientific analyses demonstrated that polymetallic ores were smelted to produce tin bronze and arsenical copper. Perforated furnaces might have been employed in this process. The site also revealed the first known field evidence of tin smelting in a Bronze Age site of northern China. Systematic investigation of this site increases our understanding of metallurgical processes of Bronze Age culture in northern China.

Currently, research remains limited on ironworking workshops in China and even throughout East Asia. The discovery of Luojiaba Site H235 in 2021 provides significant new material on this issue. This paper comprehensively organized the metallurgical artifacts and employed technological methods such as XRF and SEM-EDS to analyze the slag and hammerscale excavated from Luojiaba Site H235. First, the chemical composition and microstructural phases of the slag were analyzed, with an examination of the hammerscale. Second, the processes leading to the formation of slag and hammerscale are discussed. Third, based on the scale of the site, the chemical composition, and the characteristic shapes of the slag, combined with Serneels’ theoretical framework for quantitative analysis of forging slag, the slag unearthed from Luojiaba Site H235 was tentatively categorized as forging slag. This suggests that the workshop primarily produced or repaired iron objects through forging. Finally, considering the furnace shapes observed at contemporary sites and discussions on the potential sources of iron materials at the Luojiaba site, speculations are made regarding the furnace structure at the Luojiaba site and the possible origin of its iron materials. Unlike ironworking workshops at other contemporary sites, the location of the forging workshop at Luojiaba Site H235 presents a distinctly different choice, situated within a village or town during the Eastern Han Dynasty. This choice of location may reflect a phenomenon closer to consumer proximity. Therefore, analyzing metallurgical artifacts unearthed from Luojiaba contributes to understanding the operation of ironworking workshops and the distribution of resources in village-level settlements in the eastern Sichuan region during the Eastern Han Dynasty.

Seventeen Han Dynasty iron artifacts from the Luojiaba site, including materials from unit H235 and a burial area, were analyzed using metallography and SEM–EDS. The results indicate the concurrent use of cast iron and wrought iron/steel technologies. Cast iron artifacts—comprising white iron, mottled iron, and malleable cast iron—were mainly employed for containers and plates, whereas wrought iron and steel objects, such as knives and awls, were produced through forging, carburization, and possibly ‘CHAO’-fining processes. The constitution of inclusion demonstrates the coexistence of bloomery iron and fining steel, with bloomery iron predominating. Comparisons between slag from H235 and artifact inclusions reveal close compositional correlations, suggesting local production of many bloomery iron artifacts, while some items, including a fining steel bar and an iron sword, likely originated elsewhere. These results provide the scientific evidence for a complex, regionally adaptive metallurgical system at that region during the Han Dynasty.

The systematic investment and rearrangement of the unearthed artefacts of Longtoushan Royal Cemetery of the Bohai Kingdom have provided a bunch of new information for the archaeometallurgy research on non-ferrous metal production. We have synthesised the latest discoveries of several related mining/smelting sites and urban relics for making a direct approach to the chain of copper production in this research. SEM-EDS and p-XRF unveiled the distinction between copper and bronze artefacts. The yield gap between the scale of smelting and the number of artefacts was also discussed based on historical records. The evidence and detail of indigenous copper production could help the researcher comprehend the technology and material exchange and geopolitical relationship development of the Bohai Kingdom.