Boom and Bust in Bronze Age Britain: The Great Orme Copper Mine and European Trade

The Great Orme copper mine in North Wales is one of the largest surviving Bronze Age mines in Europe. This book presents new interdisciplinary research to reveal a copper mine of European importance, dominating Britain’s copper supply from c. 1600-1400 BC, with some metal reaching mainland Europe – from Brittany to as far as the Balt

The Great Orme copper mine on the coast of north Wales is one of the largest surviving Bronze Age mines in Europe. But where did all the copper go? Until now this remained something of a mystery. It was claimed in the 1990s that the mine only produced a low impurity type of copper that was uncommon in the British Bronze Age. These claims had marginalised the mine as an unimportant copper source, whose extensive workings were explained away as being merely the result of small-scale workings over nearly a thousand years. However, the results of this new interdisciplinary research, which combines archaeological and geological knowledge with the latest scientific analytical methods, radically changes that picture. This new evidence reveals a copper mine of European importance, which dominated Britain’s copper supply for two centuries (c. 1600-1400 BC), with some metal reaching mainland Europe – from Brittany to as far as the Baltic. This zenith period of large-scale production is very likely to have required a full-time mining community at the mine, possibly supported or controlled by the agriculturally richer area of northeast Wales with its strategic links into wider communication networks. Overall, the new evidence suggests that Britain was far more integrated into European trade/exchange networks than was previously suspected. Once the richest parts of the mine were exhausted, there followed a twilight period of minor production that lasted several centuries.

Summary ;

About the Author ;

Acknowledgements ;

Chapter 1: Introduction ;

Chapter 2: The Bronze Age research context ;

Chapter 3: Bronze Age mining and smelting ;

Chapter 4: Great Orme mine site and Pentrwyn smelting site ;

Chapter 5: Review of metal characterisation and provenance techniques ;

Chapter 6: Methodology, materials and analytical methods ;

Chapter 7: Results: Defining the Great Orme mine-based metal group ;

Chapter 8: Results: Great Orme ore mineralogy and Pentrwyn slag studies ;

Chapter 9: Discussion and interpretation ;

Chapter 10: Conclusions and future work ;

Bibliography ;

Appendix I: Compilation of published chemical analyses of ores from the British and Irish Bronze Age copper mines ;

Appendix II: Compilation of Cornish copper ore analyses ;

Appendix III: Histograms and correlation coefficients on the chemical analyses of Great Orme copper ores ;

Appendix IV: Chemical analyses of Group I palstaves (extracted from OXSAM database) ;

Appendix V: Compilation of published lead isotope analyses from the British and Irish Bronze Age copper mines not included in Table 7.11 ;

Index

• By (author) R. Alan Williams

'This is a landmark study concerning the origins of mining and metallurgy in Britain. Alan Williams has turned his PhD thesis into a scholarly publication that provides the reader with a compelling narrative based upon thorough fieldwork, a good understanding of geology, and an insightful study of the mineralogy, chemistry, and isotopic composition of the ores available to Bronze Age miners.' – Simon Timberlake (2023): Current Archaeology

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‘To sum up, the book presents a new and solid interpretation of the role of the Great Orme mine and is an inspiring lesson for those of us involved in prehistoric mining and metallurgy research. Based on a doctoral thesis, nothing is taken for granted, everything is explained, and the training and experience of Williams, in addition to the precise study of the Great Orme mine and its regional and European context, allow us to consider this work, with its controversial hypothesis, as a new reference book on prehistoric mining and metallurgy investigation.’ – Mark A. Hunt Ortiz (2023): Antiquity

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'I would highly recommend this book to anyone with an interest in ancient mining, metallurgy and the origins of Bronze Age copper in Britain and Europe. It will satisfy the interest of anyone with a good grounding in archaeological science, whilst at the same time remaining accessible to the non-specialist interested in a clearly explained study of an archaeological investigation with far-reaching implications.' – Simon Timberlake (2023): The Prehistoric Society

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'A deft combination of archaeological and scientific research, this publication confirms the importance of the Great Orme mine during the Bronze Age and provides a framework for future research. It also, through the use of mine-based metal groups, introduces a methodology which hopefully can be applied at other prehistoric metal mines in Wales and beyond.' – John Pickin (2023): Archaeologia Cambrensis Vol 172

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