New ideas on the exploitation of copper, tin, gold, and lead ores in Bronze Age Britain: The mining, smelting, and movement of metal. Issue 7 (11th June 2017) - Timberlake, Simon
ABSTRACT: Over the last 25 years, new evidence has emerged of the scale of prospection for copper and its mining during the Early-Middle Bronze Age in Britain. We know of 12 mines worked in the period 2100–1600BC, whilst the largest mine on the Great Orme continued until the Late Bronze Age, with perhaps its maximum output which may have been equivalent to 30+ tons of copper metal sometime between 1500 and 1300 BC. Bronze Age copper ores represent the now missing oxidized zones of many ore deposits, the enriched ores being easier to smelt. In this respect, the reasons why the richest ores in Cornwall were apparently not worked are discussed. The earliest tin extraction in Cornwall probably occurred during the Early Bronze Age, given the evidence for smelted tin and cassiterite; yet support for the antiquity of tin mining might be provided through the dating of some of the earliest mining artifacts, such as the antler pick from the Carnon streamworks. Yet other lines of research include paleoenvironmental investigations carried out within the tin streaming areas and isotopic provenancing of the tin in Bronze Age bronze. Alluvial gold may have been extracted from the Cornish tin streams more than 4000 years ago and could have been the main source of the gold used in Ireland and Britain during the Copper-Early Bronze Ages, a theory supported by recent lead isotope work carried out on gold artifacts and sources. However, finds of gold artifacts in areas with alluvial gold suggest that one source would not have been exclusive, particularly during the later Bronze Age. Although it sometimes tends to be invisible, lead has been used in small amounts since the Early Bronze Age, first for jewelry, and then from the Middle Bronze Age as rare artifacts, and for alloying in bronze to assist in casting. The earliest silver artifact also dates to this period. The Mendips in Somerset may have been a Late Bronze Age source of lead. Various models are examined for the exploitation of metals from the Copper Age to the Late Bronze Age, looking at the status of miners, the nature of exchange, resource protection, experimentation, prospection, and the discovery of ores. It seems possible also that the rapid development of the Bronze Age in Britain owes much to the early extraction of gold in South-West England and the discovery of tin.