take Britain into the Iron Age. The Hallstatts are believed to have used their commercial position as salt miners and pig farmers to export to other continental markets and in due course were in a position to absorb foreign ironworkers and finance the development of their metal working skills. The Hallstatts were particularly interested in the manufacture of iron for weapons and were knowledgeable about bellows furnaces and carburising, which would have enabled them to make semi-steel.
The Hallstatts eventually arrived in Britain around the 5th century BC, bringing their iron-making skills with them. Britain had abundant supplies of iron ore and in due course a widespread iron-making industry grew up. One of many iron-working sites uncovered by archaeologists was Kestor near Chagford in Devon. Here an ancient settlement has been excavated and within some of the identified dwelling structures were small furnaces and signs of a forge for working the iron.
The quantities of iron used suggest that sources of the raw material came from surface accumulations such as bog iron. Apart from weapons, particularly swords and iron blanks for blades, archaeologists also found standard size iron bars which were used as currency. By the time of the 1st century BC British blacksmiths were also hammering iron into relatively thin circular shapes for use as hoops to strengthen wooden barrels and, critically, iron tyres for chariots and other heavy duty vehicles.
10. Central/Eastern Europe
The eastern Alps
Evidence of Bronze Age copper mining and smelting has been found throughout the Alps, stretching from eastern Switzerland across Austria. A particularly large site was found in the 19th century at Muhlbach, in the Mitterberg region in Austria. The chalcopyrite copper deposit was discovered by chance, but in time (the mid-1990s) archaeologists unearthed a Late Bronze Age (1300 to 700 BC) smelting complex which almost certainly was an important user of the Muhlbach copper ore. There is evidence of an extensive set of furnaces and slag heaps, and the site is close to water that would have been used in the washing process of treatment.
The ancient mines in the Mitterberg district have also yielded some of their secrets to archaeologists and surveyors who opened up one of the ancient mines in the late 1990s. The shafts went down almost 600 feet, very deep for such an early period, and galleries and drives ran in a number of directions in pursuit of the copper ore.
Germany
What we now know as Germany was historically a region, and at times an empire, consisting of a number of separate kingdoms, including Saxony, Bavaria and Bohemia. With the coming of the Dark Ages at the end of the 5th century AD, as we mentioned before, mining and much else besides fell into decline as the old Roman Empire crumbled. Power in Europe was now based in a socially and economically backward central region, stretching through France, Germany and into Europe’s east; conflict was endemic and the main demand for metals was for iron to make weapons.
In 800 AD Charlemagne became Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire and was responsible for the striking of a new silver currency, which itself helped to start the revival of mining. Charlemagne used Saxon slave labour to mine silver from known deposits in the Erzgebirge Mountains of Saxony. In pursuit of precious metals for the Empire’s treasury to finance almost constant wars on the continent he also encouraged the re-opening of the gold and silver mines of Schemnitz and Kremnitz, first worked in the 6th and 7th centuries AD, in what is now Slovakia.
Perhaps the most famous mines developed in Germany, the life of which also spanned the ancient period, the Middle Ages, the Industrial Revolution and the modern age, were those at Rammelsberg in Lower Saxony in the Harz Mountains. The mines had been worked intermittently for over a thousand years but fell silent in the Dark Ages, re-opening in the 10th century. They produced copper, zinc, lead and silver over the centuries, the focus on particular metals in the ore changing as monetary requirements favoured silver at the end of the Dark Ages and then base metals as the Industrial Revolution loomed. It is thought that as much as 27 million tonnes of ore was mined over this long period before the last owners, Preussag, closed the mine in the late 1980s. Overall the mines were estimated to have produced over 3.75 million tonnes of zinc, 1.6 million tonnes of lead, almost 550,000 tonnes of copper, and more than 115 million ozs of silver and 825,000 ozs of gold.
The Balkans
We have already seen how the Cretans and the Romans obtained gold from the Balkans but long before then in the 5th millennium BC there is strong evidence of copper mining in Bulgaria, Rumania and Serbia. What is less obvious is the question of whether these developments came about as a result of Near East influence or whether the discovery of copper led to the establishment of an indigenous mining and metallurgical industry in the region. What we do know is that advanced civilisations like Crete imported copper from the Balkans, but in the ancient treatment sites uncovered there is some evidence of a local way of doing things in the shape of the copper casting moulds.
The main ancient Balkan copper mining sites were Ai Bunar in Bulgaria and Rudna Glava and Rudnik in Serbia. Their age, around the end of the 5th millennium, has been estimated using carbon dating techniques. These techniques were also important in raising and progressing the idea that Balkan copper mining and metallurgy were more advanced then elsewhere in the Mediterranean and Middle/Near East at that time. Certainly archaeological work over the last few years has uncovered a large number of copper artefacts, which are older and still more sophisticated than those found elsewhere in the region.
Without written records, the sort of civilisation in the Balkans several thousand years ago must be drawn from a mixture of evidence from archaeological diggings and speculation. The evidence from graves containing a large number of jewellery items, uncovered near the Bulgarian town of Varna, can be used. Many of the items were of gold, which suggested a graveyard for the wealthy of the region. It also suggested the likelihood of metal trading, as some of the copper artefacts in the graves were not consistent with local ore types. So in this relatively unconsidered, in today’s mining terms, part of eastern Europe we note copper mining, treatment, manufacturing, and metal trading with a social hierarchy thrown in for good measure, and all now 7000 years ago.
Other mining regions
From the 7th to the 11th centuries the silver and lead mines of Melle in central, western France were an important source of wealth for the French crown. Charlemagne, France’s first modern king, was particularly in need of currency as he waged almost total conflict during his reign (768-814) in his efforts to unite Europe. Before the Carolingian period lead had been the main target of the preceding Merovingian dynasty.
The mines at Melle were extensive with galleries running several miles which had been carved out by the miners over the centuries after accessing the ore via vertical shafts; fire setting and then pick were the traditional mining methods used. From the 11th century silver was mined in the Fournel valley in France’s southern Alps near the village of L’Argentiere, named after the silver mines; again the need for silver coinage was the key motivation. The mines operated intermittently over the centuries, finally closing in the 19th century; an extensive network of tunnels where miners followed and extracted the ore remains today and can be visited. Evidence also remains of the surface treatment facilities.
11. North America
The possibility that the indigenous Indians of North America could have been involved in mining activity is something that early European settlers would have found unlikely given the basic nomadic structure of the lives of these people. However, the discovery of ancient mine workings in the area of Lake Superior in Michigan in the 19th century suggested otherwise, to begin with anyway.
S.O. Knapp, who worked for the Minnesota Mining Company, came across two ancient copper mining sites in Michigan when surveying for the firm. One consisted of an ancient gallery which had been excavated underground and in the gallery were a number of stone hammers and an exposed copper vein. Close by Knapp found evidence of another copper mine where a shaft had been sunk to around 30 feet. In this shaft Knapp came across a large smooth lump of native copper, weighing perhaps 6 tons, which had clearly been worked by miners in the very distant