Underground flint mining
Minería subterránea de sílex (pozos y galerías)
- Date
- c. 4300 BCE · confidence high
- Place
- Spiennes mines, Mons, Belgium
- Credited to
- Michelsberg culture
- Field
- Matter & energy
What it is
Shafts up to 16 m deep with radial galleries, dug with antler picks to extract quality flint nodules for axes. The first systematic mining with shoring and ventilation techniques.
Rudna Glava (Serbia, c. 5000 BCE) is older for copper; Spiennes is the largest and best-documented site for flint.
What it led to
- Industrial-scale production of axes for forest clearance
- Long-distance exchange of flint and axes as prestige goods
- Shaft-and-gallery techniques later reused in copper mining (Rudna Glava, Ai Bunar)
Built on
- Polished stone axec. 8000 BCE
- Antler pick
Made possible
- Copper mining
- Mass-produced polished axe
- Mine timbering