A
Anonymous
Guest
I will ask him, and get back to you. It may take a week or two before I visit him next.
Hagrid.
Hagrid.
Hagrid said:PS....will email him and ask for the word he found again..I forget..and post it on the site. Someone may have an explanation or translation for the word.
Many_Angled_One said:I think that if ancient mining occured then it would have been fairly small in scale, probably there are many mine workings buried under tons of fallen rubble and rocks and earth and have so far escaped detection.
But I have read somewhere of ancient copper mines discovered in the USA somewhere (probably where Cornish miners settled). These workings were apparently quite large, and seemed to have nothing to do with the Indian tribes who lived in the area, and who had a low-tech lifestyle. If I come across any links I'll pass them on.
Many_Angled_One said:did anybody watch "Britain BC" last night? Copper mines that had miles and miles of tunnels underground that were several thousand years old! Cant remember where it was though
rynner said:But I have read somewhere of ancient copper mines discovered in the USA somewhere (probably where Cornish miners settled). These workings were apparently quite large, and seemed to have nothing to do with the Indian tribes who lived in the area, and who had a low-tech lifestyle. If I come across any links I'll pass them on.
Missing: 500,000 tons of copper
For some 1800 years, beginning abruptly about 3000 BC, some industrious peoples mined ore equivalent to 500,000 tons of copper from Michigan's Isle Royale and Keweenaw Peninsula. Who were these mysterious miners, and what happened to all all that copper? It certainly hasn't been found in the relics of North American Indians. And where was the ore smelted? About all the unidentified miners left behind are some of the crude tools they used to pound out chunks of ore from their pit mines (5000 pit mines on Isle Royale alone). Outside of some cairns and slabrock ruins, there is little to help pin down these miners. Mainstream archeologists attribute all these immense labors to a North American "Copper Culture" -- certainly not to copper-hungry visitors from foreign shores. Admittedly, many copper artifacts have been dug up from North American mounds, but only a tiny fraction of the metal the Michigan mines must have yielded.
Curiously, North American Indian mounds have contained copper sheets made in the shape of an animal hide. Called "reels," their function, if any, is unknown. The reels do, however, resemble oddly shaped copper ingots common in European Bronze Age com merce. Their peculiar shape earned these ingots the name "oxhydes." They have been found in Bronze Age shipwrecks, and are even said to be portrayed in wall paintings in Egyptian tombs. The standardized hide-like shape, with its four convenient handles, was useful in carrying and stacking the heavy ingots. Could the reels from the North American mounds have been copied from the oxhydes? It is tempting to speculate (as we are wont to do) that the Copper Culture miners were actually Europeans, or perhaps Native Americans employed or enslaved by Europeans -- an omen of future, more devastating invasions! (Sodders, Betty; "Who Mined American Copper 5,000 Years Ago?" Ancient American, 1:28, September/October 1993.)
The State of Our Knowledge About Ancient Copper Mining in Michigan
The Michigan Archaeologist 41(2-3):119-138.
Susan R. Martin 1995
Well, one of the essential ingredients of technology is, of course, metal.
Cornwall had plenty of metal ores, but little fuel to smelt them.Tin Finger said:wouldnt any mine that produces any ore have to have a nearby foundry?
either to process the ore into whichever pure metal or to simply shape it
why would you dig up copper and then transport it in its raw state?
they did this in this country then iirc used canals later on when the amounts of ore went balistic.
so any old mine would either have a transport system nearby or a foundry that could be excavated.
Maybe, in oxygen poor atmospheres. But mostly, copper is much easier to extract than iron, which needs much higher temperatures in carbon rich conditions before reducing to its metallic element from its oxides and salts. Copper occasionally turns up as free copper metal. It's also softer and easier to work than iron.Gadaffi_Duck said:Hope someone here knows but I seem to remember someone saying that the iron age should've occured before the copper as iron is easier to extract and forge.