The History of Mining
Humankind has been mining for millennia, extracting minerals and other valuable materials from the land, whether skimming from the surface or delving deep, deep down into the bowels of the earth. From flint tools to the diamond-point drill, the advancement of technology has revolutionized mining time and time again, transforming it into a true, worldwide industry. Here is a brief history of the fascinating development of the human mining process.
The Neolithic
Age and
Antiquity
Ceramics, stone and metals collected from just below the Earth's surface were repurposed by Neolithic Man to create simple weapons and tools. In what are now Southern England and Northern France, flint was mined from around 4,000 to 3,000 BCE. Materials like malachite were mined by the Ancient Egyptians for making pottery and other ornaments. The Egyptians coveted other materials, such as copper and turquoise, enough to range the Sinai Peninsula in pursuit of these. Of course, gold, that most precious of metals to so many civilizations, was also mined in Nubia.
The Macedonians, under Philip II of Macedon (who fathered Alexander the Great), went to war over gold mines. Mount Pangeo was captured through a Macedonian military campaign in the fourth century BCE, and the mines in Thrace were taken over for the purposes of minting gold coins. Western Civilization must credit the Romans with originating methods for mining on a grand scale. They invented the hydraulic mining technique called "hushing" which, though now obsolete, they used to root out ore veins using their famous aqueducts to funnel large volumes of water to the minehead. Upon conquering Spain and Britannia, the Romans also fully explored mining operations in both of these provinces of the empire.
In the East, the Chinese were creating massive iron objects 2,300 years ago. In perspective, those in the Middle East and in Europe had yet to discover how to melt and use iron. All over the world, man was discovering how to take and use the products created by the earth itself.
Europe in the
Middle Ages
Copper and iron were the commodities of choice in early medieval Europe, aside from those materials used for coinage. Construction of deep mine shafts were usually not required, as shallow depth open-pit mines provided enough ore to satisfy. In the 1300s, however, military demand for iron skyrocketed due to the increased need for tools of war, such as armor, horseshoes, blades, stirrups and other essentials of the warrior class. This unprecedented clamor for iron put a fire to the development of new mining techniques.
By the mid-seventeenth century, water mills were used to float ore up the shafts or crush it, in addition to powering bellows which provided ventilation throughout the mine. The first known use of the explosive black powder in a mining operation occurred in the early to mid-1600s, in the Kingdom of Hungary. Blasting apart rock allowed for rapid-fire mining of ore veins, by revealing these to the light of day. More than a century later, that same area of Hungary saw the establishment of the world’s original mining academy.
Modern
History
Many Americans are familiar with the gold and silver rushes of the early 20th century. The first gold rush, however, began in California in 1848, when gold was first discovered in the United States. Alaska came next when, in 1896 to 1897, the Yukon River Valley experienced the Klondike Gold Rush. In those places that are now called Alaska, Arizona, Montana and Utah, local suppliers became preeminent in the worldwide copper market. Though Canada lagged behind the United States in the mining industry for some time, Ontario does claim the lead in early 20th century copper, nickel and gold production.
Coal has been mined by human beings for centuries. Archaeological evidence suggests that even the Romans in the province of Britannia used coal for heat in the years 100-200 CE, and the English, in the eighteenth century, discovered that coal produced a cleaner, hotter fuel than wood charcoal did. Though coal was discovered by Western settlers in America in 1673, only in the 1740s did the first commercial coal mines open for business, in what would become known as the State of Virginia. The United States Civil War saw the advent of the use of coal in weapons factories, and in the 1880s coal was used in factories and homes to generate electricity. Humanity hasn’t looked back since.