Mining in history
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This document provides an overview of mining throughout history from the Paleolithic era to the Roman era. It describes some of the earliest underground mining dating back 37,000 years in the Nile Valley where chert was extracted. During the Neolithic period, a large chert mine operated at Spiennes, Belgium from 4400 BC to 2000 BC using shafts up to 16 meters deep. Chalcolithic miners extracted native copper and smelted it using blowpipes and furnaces. The Romans advanced mining techniques using timber supports, water management, and hydraulic mining techniques like those used at Las Médulas, Spain.
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Mining in history
- 1. MINING IN THE ANCIENT WORLD Nathalie Nicole Brandes Professor of Geosciences New Mexico Tech Alumna
- 5. PALAEOLITHIC • 2.5 Ma to 20,000 years ago • Includes:Australopithecus, Homo erectus, Neanderthals, and modern humans
- 6. MESOLITHIC • ~20,000 to ~7,000 years ago • Begins with hunter- gatherers, ends with agriculture. • Style of stone tools changed.
- 7. NEOLITHIC • Marked by domesticated crops and animals and pottery – 10,000 BC Mesopotamia and Levant – Later in Europe
- 8. CHALCOLITHIC • Obvious social hierarchy develops • Copper tools, casting, and lost wax casting
- 9. BRONZE AGE • Near East: ~4th Millennium BC • Egypt and the Aegean: ~3200 BC • Britain: ~2000 BC • Europe: ~1800 BC • Scandinavia: ~1700 BC
- 10. IRON AGE • Near East: ~1300 BC • Europe: ~1200 BC, but varied greatly
- 11. PALAEOLITHIC MINING • Nile Valley – Extracted chert from sedimentary rock – Trenches ~37,000 years old – Underground mining ~35,000 years old
- 12. PALAEOLITHIC MINING • Underground Mining at Nazlet Khater: – Bell pits – 2 m shafts – 10 m3 galleries – 11 pits at site
- 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
- 16. CHALCOLITHIC • Extracted native copper, copper carbonates, and copper sulphides • Mining method- firesetting • Smelting
- 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.”
- 18. FIRESETTING
- 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
- 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
- 27. ROMAN MINING
- 28. ROMAN MINING- LAS MÉDULAS • Hydraulic mining
- 30. ROMAN MINING-RIO TINTO • Name comes from colourful water due to AMD
- 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