Draft:History of mining

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The History of mining is the history of excavating minerals from the earth. It dates back to prehistoric times.

Prehistory

The concept of mining may predate humans. Over 2 million years ago, during the Early Stone Age, species such as Australopithecus garhi and Homo habilus made stone tools. The earliest stone tools were made of flint, a sedimentary rock. These early hominins' retrieval of flint alluvial deposits from riverbeds, while not as practiced or as technical as placer mining today, still marks the beginning of the use of minerals taken from the earth. The development of actually digging into the ground for the best stones to use as tools and cutting stones occurred around 1.9 million years ago. Early hominins expanded out of Africa into Europe and Asia approximately 2 million years ago, bringing stone tools with them.

The oldest-known mine on archaeological record is the Ngwenya Mine in Eswatini (Swaziland), which radiocarbon dating shows to be about 43,000 years old. At this site Paleolithic humans mined hematite to make the red pigment ochre. Mines of a similar age in Hungary are believed to be sites where Neanderthals may have mined flint for weapons and tools. Flint mines have been found in chalk areas where seams of the stone were followed underground by shafts and galleries. The mines at Grimes Graves and Krzemionki are especially famous, and like most other flint mines, are Neolithic in origin (c. 4000–3000 BC).

Native metals may have been the next minerals to be used. Trace amounts of gold have been found in Paleolithic caves dating to 40,000 years ago. Copper was the first metal to be shaped into objects, around 10,000 years ago.

During prehistoric times, early Americans mined large amounts of copper along Lake Superior's Keweenaw Peninsula and in nearby Isle Royale; metallic copper was still present near the surface in colonial times. Indigenous peoples used Lake Superior copper from at least 5,000 years ago; copper tools, arrowheads, and other artifacts that were part of an extensive native trade-network have been discovered. In addition, obsidian, flint, and other minerals were mined, worked, and traded. Early French explorers who encountered the sites made no use of the metals due to the difficulties of transporting them, but the copper was eventually traded throughout the continent along major river routes.

Miners at the Tamarack Mine in Copper Country, Michigan, U.S. in 1905.

Turquoise dated at 700 AD was mined in pre-Columbian America; in the Cerillos Mining District in New Mexico, an estimate of "about 15,000 tons of rock had been removed from Mt. Chalchihuitl using stone tools before 1700."

Antiquity

Ancient Egypt

See also: Mining industry of Egypt

Gold mining in Upper Egypt can be traced back to predynastic times, and the earliest map known in the world from the Ramesside Period dating to about 1160 BCE, shows the route to the gold mines in the Wadi Hammamat, Eastern Desert. The mines in Ancient Egypt were worked by slaves who were made to work under astonishingly difficult conditions and were often beaten if they did not work hard enough. Gold mining started with alluvial workings in Egypt and was followed by shallow underground vein mining in Nubia about 1300 BCE, during the New Kingdom period. These mines are mentioned by the Greek historian Diodorus Siculus in his Bibliotheca historica written about 60 BCE, as among the largest and most extensive of any in Ancient Egypt. The Bibliotheca historica also describes the method of fire-setting used by the Egyptians to weaken rocks by thermal shock as one way to break down the hard rock holding the gold. The miners crushed the ore and ground it to a fine powder before washing the powder for the gold dust.

Ancient Egyptians mined malachite at Maadi. At first, Egyptians used the bright green malachite stones for ornamentations and pottery. Later, between 2613 and 2494 BC, large building projects required expeditions abroad to the area of Wadi Maghareh in order to secure minerals and other resources not available in Egypt itself. Quarries for turquoise and copper were also found at Wadi Hammamat, Tura, Aswan and various other Nubian sites on the Sinai Peninsula and at Timna.

Egypt is famous for its ancient limestone quarries that dot the Nile Valley from Cairo to Aswan. These quarries provided the stone for famous structures such as the Pyramids at Giza. Sandstone, agate, and carnelian were mined in Nubia. The Eastern Hills had large deposits of a variety of other gemstones such as emerald, jasper, amethyst, and garnet.

Ancient Greece and Rome

Further information: Mining in Roman Britain

Ancient Roman development of the Dolaucothi Gold Mines, Wales

Mining in Europe has a very long history. Examples include the silver mines of Laurium, which helped support the Greek city state of Athens. Although they had over 20,000 slaves working them, their technology was essentially identical to their Bronze Age predecessors. At other mines, such as on the island of Thassos, marble was quarried by the Parians after they arrived in the 7th century BC. The marble was shipped away and was later found by archaeologists to have been used in buildings including the tomb of Amphipolis. Philip II of Macedon, the father of Alexander the Great, captured the gold mines of Mount Pangeo in 357 BC to fund his military campaigns. He also captured gold mines in Thrace for minting coinage, eventually producing 26 tons per year.

However, it was the Romans who developed large-scale mining methods, especially the use of large volumes of water brought to the minehead by numerous aqueducts. The water was used for a variety of purposes, including removing overburden and rock debris, called hydraulic mining, as well as washing comminuted, or crushed, ores and driving simple machinery.

The Romans used hydraulic mining methods on a large scale to prospect for the veins of ore, especially using a now-obsolete form of mining known as hushing. They built numerous aqueducts to supply water to the minehead, where the water was stored in large reservoirs and tanks. When a full tank was opened, the flood of water sluiced away the overburden to expose the bedrock underneath and any gold-bearing veins. The rock was then worked by fire-setting to heat the rock, which would be quenched with a stream of water. The resulting thermal shock cracked the rock, enabling it to be removed by further streams of water from the overhead tanks. The Roman miners used similar methods to work cassiterite deposits in Cornwall and lead ore in the Pennines.

Sluicing methods were developed by the Romans in Spain in 25 AD to exploit large alluvial gold deposits, the largest site being at Las Medulas, where seven long aqueducts tapped local rivers and sluiced the deposits. The Romans also exploited the silver present in the argentiferous galena in the mines of Cartagena (Cartago Nova), Linares (Castulo), Plasenzuela and Azuaga, among many others. Spain was one of the most important mining regions, but all regions of the Roman Empire were exploited. In Great Britain the natives had mined minerals for millennia, but after the Roman conquest, the scale of the operations increased dramatically, as the Romans needed Britannia's resources, especially gold, silver, tin, and lead.

Roman techniques were not limited to surface mining. They followed the ore veins underground once opencast mining was no longer feasible. At Dolaucothi they stoped out the veins and drove adits through bare rock to drain the stopes. The same adits were also used to ventilate the workings, especially important when fire-setting was used. At other parts of the site, they penetrated the water table and dewatered the mines using several kinds of machines, especially reverse overshot water-wheels. These were used extensively in the copper mines at Rio Tinto in Spain, where one sequence comprised 16 such wheels arranged in pairs, and lifting water about 24 metres (79 ft). They were worked as treadmills with miners standing on the top slats. Many examples of such devices have been found in old Roman mines and some examples are now preserved in the British Museum and the National Museum of Wales.

Ancient China

China was the first civilization to mine coal for heat, with a history of mining for coal dating back over 3,000 years. Coal was seen as a solution for the rapid deforestation of China's forests, as that was taking place to meet energy demands through charcoal. Possible reasons this did not lead to China industrializing are hypothesized to include Confucian ideals, lack of government support for change, and the physical geography not being ideal for it (for example, the coal deposits were in the North while economic activity was concentrated in the South, and the coal was deeper in the ground than Britain's).

Medieval era

Medieval Europe

Main article: Mining and metallurgy in medieval Europe

Agricola, author of De Re Metallica

Gallery, 12th to 13th century, Germany

Mining as an industry underwent dramatic changes in medieval Europe. The mining industry in the early Middle Ages was mainly focused on the extraction of copper and iron. Other precious metals were also used, mainly for gilding or coinage. Initially, many metals were obtained through open-pit mining, and ore was primarily extracted from shallow depths, rather than through deep mine shafts. Around the 14th century, the growing use of weapons, armour, stirrups, and horseshoes greatly increased the demand for iron. Medieval knights, for example, were often laden with up to 100 pounds (45 kg) of plate or chain link armour in addition to swords, lances and other weapons. The overwhelming dependency on iron for military purposes spurred iron production and extraction processes.

The silver crisis of 1465 occurred when all mines had reached depths at which the shafts could no longer be pumped dry with the available technology. Although an increased use of banknotes, credit and copper coins during this period did decrease the value of, and dependence on, precious metals, gold and silver still remained vital to the story of medieval mining.

Due to differences in the social structure of society, the increasing extraction of mineral deposits spread from central Europe to England in the mid-sixteenth century. On the continent, mineral deposits belonged to the crown, and this regalian right was stoutly maintained. But in England, royal mining rights were restricted to gold and silver (of which England had virtually no deposits) by a judicial decision of 1568 and a law in 1688. England had iron, zinc, copper, lead, and tin ores. Landlords who owned the base metals and coal under their estates then had a strong inducement to extract these metals or to lease the deposits and collect royalties from mine operators. English, German, and Dutch capital combined to finance extraction and refining. Hundreds of German technicians and skilled workers were brought over; in 1642 a colony of 4,000 foreigners was mining and smelting copper at Keswick in the northwestern mountains.

Use of water power in the form of water mills was extensive. The water mills were employed in crushing ore, raising ore from shafts, and ventilating galleries by powering giant bellows. Black powder was first used in mining in Selmecbánya, Kingdom of Hungary (now Banská Štiavnica, Slovakia) in 1627. Black powder allowed blasting of rock and earth to loosen and reveal ore veins. Blasting was much faster than fire-setting and allowed the mining of previously impenetrable metals and ores. In 1762, the world's first mining academy was established in the same town there.

The widespread adoption of agricultural innovations such as the iron plowshare, as well as the growing use of metal as a building material, was also a driving force in the tremendous growth of the iron industry during this period. Inventions like the arrastra were often used by the Spanish to pulverize ore after being mined. This device was powered by animals and used the same principles used for grain threshing.

Much of the knowledge of medieval mining techniques comes from books such as Biringuccio's De la pirotechnia and probably most importantly from Georg Agricola's De re metallica (1556). These books detail many different mining methods used in German and Saxon mines. A prime issue in medieval mines, which Agricola explains in detail, was the removal of water from mining shafts. As miners dug deeper to access new veins, flooding became a very real obstacle. The mining industry became dramatically more efficient and prosperous with the invention of mechanically- and animal-driven pumps.

Medieval Africa

Gold became an important commodity for Africa during the trans-Saharan gold trade from the 7th century to the 14th century. Gold was often traded to Mediterranean economies that demanded gold and could supply salt, even though much of Africa was abundant with salt due to the mines and resources in the Sahara desert. The trading of gold for salt was mostly used to promote trade between the different economies. West Africa was a major producer of gold during the medieval era, with large deposits in Mali and Ghana that are still tapped today. The Islamic Empires of the time had a huge demand for gold because of their architecture and to pay their armies.

Modern era

View showing miners' clothes suspended by pulleys, also wash basins and ventilation system, Kirkland Lake, Ontario, 1936.

The mining of coal played an important role in the Industrial Revolution. Gold rushes occurred in the 1800s in the United States, Canada, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand.

As the 21st century begins, a globalized mining industry of large multinational corporations has arisen. Peak minerals and environmental impacts have also become a concern. Different elements, particularly rare earth minerals, have begun to increase in demand as a result of new technologies.

Americas

Lead mining in the upper Mississippi River region of the U.S., 1865

In the early colonial history of the Americas, "native gold and silver was quickly expropriated and sent back to Spain in fleets of gold- and silver-laden galleons", the gold and silver originating mostly from mines in Central and South America.

In 1727 Louis Denys (Denis) (1675–1741), sieur de La Ronde – brother of Simon-Pierre Denys de Bonaventure and the son-in-law of René Chartier – took command of Fort La Pointe at Chequamegon Bay; where natives informed him of an island of copper. La Ronde obtained permission from the French crown to operate mines in 1733, becoming "the first practical miner on Lake Superior"; seven years later, mining was halted by an outbreak between Sioux and Chippewa tribes. The first documented discovery of gold in the United States was at Reed Gold Mine, North Carolina in 1799. This led to the Carolina Gold Rush in the 1800s. Mining in the United States continued to become widespread in the 19th century. The United States Congress passed the General Mining Act of 1872 to encourage mining of federal lands. This led to more gold rushes in the United States, such as the California Gold Rush and Black Hills Gold Rushes in the mid-1800s, and the Alaska gold rushes in the early 1900s. Mining for minerals and precious metals, along with ranching, became a driving factor in the U.S. Westward Expansion to the Pacific coast. With the exploration of the West, mining camps sprang up and "expressed a distinctive spirit, an enduring legacy to the new nation"; Gold Rushers would experience the same problems as the Land Rushers of the transient West that preceded them. Aided by railroads, many people traveled West for work opportunities in mining. Western cities such as Denver and Sacramento originated as mining towns.

When new areas were explored, it was usually the gold (placer and then lode) and then silver that were taken into possession and extracted first. Other metals would often wait for railroads or canals, as coarse gold dust and nuggets do not require smelting and are easy to identify and transport. In the early 20th century, the gold and silver rush to the western United States also stimulated mining for coal as well as base metals such as copper, lead, and iron. Areas in modern Montana, Utah, Arizona, and later Alaska became predominate suppliers of copper to the world, which was increasingly demanding copper for electrical and households goods.

Canada's mining industry grew more slowly than did the United States' due to limitations in transportation, capital, and U.S. competition; Ontario was the major producer of the early 20th century with nickel, copper, and gold. Interest in the Klondike gold rush of the Yukon region of Canada waned with the discovery of gold in Alaska that was easier to extract, but heavier equipment in the later 1900s allowed the Yukon gold to be more easily extracted, leading to large amounts of gold being mined there in the contemporary era.

Africa

Main article: Mineral industry of Africa

Since the 19th century, gold and diamond mining in Southern Africa has had major political and economic impacts. The Democratic Republic of Congo is the largest producer of diamonds in Africa, with an estimated 12 million carats in 2019. The Democratic Republic of the Congo also has a history of conflict over rare metals such as gold and tin. Guinea, in West Africa, is one of the largest bauxite-producing nations in the world. Other types of mining reserves in Africa include cobalt, iron ore, coal, and copper.

Oceania

Gold and coal mining started in Australia and New Zealand in the 19th century. Nickel has become important in the economy of New Caledonia.

Australia experienced the Australian gold rushes and by the 1850s was producing 40% of the world's gold, followed by the establishment of large mines such as the Mount Morgan Mine, which ran for nearly a hundred years, Broken Hill ore deposit (one of the largest zinc-lead ore deposits), and the iron ore mines at Iron Knob. After declines in production, another boom in mining occurred in the 1960s. Now, in the early 21st century, Australia remains a major world mineral producer.

In Fiji, in 1934, the Emperor Gold Mining Company Ltd. established operations at Vatukoula, followed in 1935 by the Loloma Gold Mines, N.L., and then by Fiji Mines Development Ltd. (aka Dolphin Mines Ltd.). These developments ushered in a “mining boom”, with gold production rising more than a hundred-fold, from 931.4 oz in 1934 to 107,788.5 oz in 1939, an order of magnitude then comparable to the combined output of New Zealand and Australia's eastern states.