Evidence for Bronze Age and Medieval tin placer mining in the Erzgebirge mountains, Saxony (Germany)

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F00216224%3A14310%2F20%3A00120480" target="_blank" >RIV/00216224:14310/20:00120480 - isvavai.cz</a>

Alternative codes found

RIV/00216224:14310/19:00106990 RIV/67985912:_____/20:00521007 RIV/00216224:14310/20:00113912

Result on the web

<a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/gea.21763" target="_blank" >https://doi.org/10.1002/gea.21763</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/gea.21763" target="_blank" >10.1002/gea.21763</a>

Result language

angličtina

Original language name

Evidence for Bronze Age and Medieval tin placer mining in the Erzgebirge mountains, Saxony (Germany)

Original language description

Tin is an essential raw material both for the copper-tin alloys developed during the Early Bronze Age and for the casting of tableware in the Medieval period. Secondary geological deposits in the form of placers (cassiterite) provide easily accessible sources but have often been reworked several times during land-use history. In fact, evidence for the earliest phase of tin mining during the Bronze Age has not yet been confirmed for any area in Europe, stimulating an ongoing debate on this issue. For this study, a broad range of methods (sedimentology, pedology, palynology, anthracology, OSL/14C-dating, and micromorphology) was applied both within the extraction zone of placer mining and the downstream alluvial sediments at Schellerhau site in the upper eastern Erzgebirge (Germany). The results indicate that the earliest local removal of topsoil and processing of cassiterite-bearing weathered granite occurred already in the early second millennium BC, thus coinciding with the early and middle Bronze Age period. Placer mining resumed in this area during the Medieval period, probably as early as the 13th century AD. A peak of alluvial sedimentation during the mid-15th century AD is probably related to the acquisition of this region by the Elector of Saxony and the subsequent promotion of mining.

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

J_imp - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the Web of Science database

CEP classification

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OECD FORD branch

60102 - Archaeology

Project

—

Continuities

I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace

Publication year

2020

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Name of the periodical

GEOARCHAEOLOGY-AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL

ISSN

0883-6353

e-ISSN

1520-6548

Volume of the periodical

35

Issue of the periodical within the volume

2

Country of publishing house

GB - UNITED KINGDOM

Number of pages

19

Pages from-to

198-216

UT code for WoS article

000480970300001

EID of the result in the Scopus database

2-s2.0-85078856221