13. NEOLITHIC MINING
• Spiennes, Belgium
– Chert mine
– Operated 4400 BC
to 2000 BC
– Covers ~100 ha
– Shafts 8-16 m
– Drifts 2-5 m
– Large flint pieces
(~2 m) extracted
using foudroyage
method
17. FIRESETTING
• Described by ancient authors, including
Agatharchides, Diodorus Siculus, and
Pliny the Younger
• Diodorus:
– “The earth which is hardest and full of gold they soften by putting
fire under it, and then work it out with their hands. The rocks thus
softened and made more pliant and yielding, several thousands
of profligate wretches break in pieces with hammers and
pickaxes.”
• Pliny:
– “Occasionally a kind of silex [quartz-rich rock] is met with, which
must be broken with fire and vinegar.”
– He also noted this could fill the mine tunnels with “suffocating
fumes and smoke.”
19. CHALCOLITHIC SMELTING
• Example from Hacinebi
Tepe, Turkey
• Blowpipes, not bellows
provided air to furnace
• Four furnaces in one
building- indicates
industry, not a household
activity
– 3 people on blowpipes
– 1 tending charcoal
– 1 tending ore and slag
20. CHALCOLITHIC EUROPE
• Ötzi the iceman
• 5300 years ago
• Carried flint dagger
and flint-tipped
arrows, but a
copper axe
• Stood ~5’4”-
basically my
dimesions
• ~45 years old at
time of death
• Hair contained high
levels of Cu and As
21. BRONZE AGE
• Great Orme, Wales
– Mining began ~2000 BC
– Cu-carbonates and
sulphides in dolomite
– 6 km passages
– 70 m depth
– ~1800 tonnes mined
– Bone, rock, and bronze
tools with fire setting
– Trade routes with
Cornwall indicated
22.
23.
24. IRON AGE
• Iron harder to smelt
than other metals
• Hittites- earliest
documented use of
iron tools and
weaponry
25. ROMAN MINING
• Opencast, underground, and hydraulic mining
• Underground mines accessed through shafts
and adits
• Firesetting, iron gad bar, iron picks, iron
battering rams
• Timbering, room and pillar
• Baskets or buckets to raise ore to surface
26. ROMAN MINING
• Lighting
– Oil lamps
• Ventilation
– Lamps for checking air
– Ventilation shafts
• Dewatering
– French drains
– Bailing buckets
– Screw pumps
– Waterwheels
31. ROMAN MINING-RIO TINTO
• Earliest mining ~5000 years ago (Chalcolithic)
• ~1100 BC Phoenicians took over mining from
Tartessians
– Ag and Cu mined
– Introduced bellows → makes smelting more
effective
• ~535 BC Carthaginians control area
• ~206 BC Romans arrive
– Largest Ag and Cu mine in the empire
32. SO WHAT WAS HAPPENING
IN NORTH AMERICA?
• Copper Culture
– ~5000 BC to protohistoric
– Until ~1500 BC, copper
used for tools
– After ~1500 BC copper
mostly used for
ornamental objects
33. COPPER CULTURE MINING
• First exploited float
• Later quarried using
hammerstones and
firesetting
34. COPPER CULTURE
PROCESSING
• No evidence of smelting or casting
• Copper shaped with hot and cold
hammering
– Annealing must have been known, meaning
copper was heated to at least 405°C
• Possibly used molds and swaging
35. • Mining in North America would not change
much until the arrival of Europeans
• Mining in Europe after the fall of the
Roman Empire?
36. • Mining in North America would not change
much until the arrival of Europeans
• Mining in Europe after the fall of the
Roman Empire?
– That is a story for another day
