Mining heritage

Na primeira década do novo milénio registou-se o surgimento de novas cartas patrimoniais no âmbito do património industrial, traduzindo uma cada vez maior importância e reconhecimento que este tipo de património tem vindo a conhecer. Neste artigo, apresentam-se as novas cartas e propostas de cartas patrimoniais consagradas a diversos tipos de património industrial, descreve-se a sua génese e apresentam-se algumas considerações sobre o seu significado.

This is a Thesis on Industrial Archaeology, the first of its kind to be developed in the University of Cordoba. Its main aim is to analyze the role played by copper mining and metallurgy in the peculiar industrialization process of Cordoba, focusing on the particular case of Cerro Muriano, an area of the cordobesian mountain range located 16 km North from the city and divided into the municipal boundaries of Cordoba and Obejo (Spain). From strict meaning, the chronological range of this research goes from 1897 to 1919, when Cerro Muriano was worked by four different British companies: Cordova Exploration Company, Ltd.; Cerro Muriano Mines, Ltd.; North Cerro Muriano Copper Mines, Ltd.; and Cordoba Copper Company, Ltd. However, the study of the context (from a local to an international scale) and the connection between the case analyzed and its environment attends to a wider period: around 1850-1950, i.e. the time of Cordoba industrialization.
Mining and metallurgy brought far-reaching changes to the territory of Cerro Muriano. This Thesis answers a number of questions by applying archaeological methods to the remains of these industrial activities, combined with the study of any other sources of information. For example, how was the English exploitation of that place, how and why did it start, which one was its model, which was the situation of the Cerro Muriano mine in relation to others, how mining and metallurgy changed the landscape there, which cultural context and industrial society were generated by these activities and how the whole thing influenced on the industrialization of Cordoba.

Esta proposta de artigo tem como principal objetivo apresentar um estudo de caso sobre o Distrito de
Miguel Burnier, localizado na porção oeste do Município de Ouro Preto no Estado de Minas Gerais,
Brasil; a partir de uma discussão sobre os impactos socioculturais advindos da instalação das
atividades mineiro-industriais neste território, cuja paisagem vem sendo modificada desde o século XIX.
E apesar desta localidade ter passado por um período de expansão econômica que durou até o quartel
final do séc. XX, sua situação atual é de extrema tensão social, claramente percebida tanto pelo
processo de degradação do seu meio urbano, quanto pelo êxodo da população local, que sai em busca
de postos de trabalho e melhores oportunidades em outras localidades. Pelo artigo proposto,
pretende-se realizar uma breve contextualização histórica da formação territorial de Miguel Burnier,
ressaltar sua importância sob o ponto de vista do seu Patrimônio Cultural Industrial, além de discutir
brevemente sobre alguns instrumentos e parcerias utilizados para a promoção e proteção dos bens
culturais em questão, apresentando os esforços dos gestores públicos que atuam na localidade com a
finalidade da preservação do Patrimônio Cultural local. Objetiva-se também trazer à tona as
potencialidades locais através do conceito da apreensão do conceito de patrimônio industrial, que
implica na tomada de consciência do valor destes locais, paisagens e equipamentos fora de uso.
Palavras-chave: Patrimônio Cultural Industrial; Paisagem Cultural; Instrumentos de Proteção; Miguel
Burnier; mineração.

LOCATED IN SOUTHEASTERN IMPERIAL County, California, the Potholes Mining District is situated at the southwestern end of the Chocolate Mountains, and along the northwestern bank of the Colorado River, at the location of present day Laguna Dam. The All American Canal now defines the southwest boundary of the area. A little over a mile square, the district’s mineral resources consist largely of placer gold in Quaternary gravels. Some gold bearing quartz veins occur on the northern edge of the district at the Trio and Three C’s mines (Morton 1977:58). The sparsely vegetated terrain consists of sand and gravel filled washes, dark brown desert pavement terraces, and small steep granitic hills. Abandoned shafts, old dry washer tailing piles, and “rat hole” tunnels dug into banks and terraces represent the work of a class of miners that remains relatively undocumented by western historians: the independent Mexican prospector and self employed small mine owner.

Cerro Muriano is a small population centre situated 16 km to the north of the city of Córdoba, between the municipalities of Córdoba and Obejo (Andalusia, Spain). This territory is situated over a large field of copper veins, which has been exploited by the different peoples and societies that have populated Córdoba’s mountain range Sierra Morena. The mining and metallurgy of this red metal have been used to track the evolution of this site over time. This has produced much archaeological evidence, ranging from the Copper Age to the 20th century. Thanks to its originality and its well-preserved state –and also the commitment of Fernando Penco Valenzuela, the director of the Museo del Cobre (Copper Museum) located there– this particular piece of mining history enjoys legal protection today.
From 1897 to 1919, the mines of Cerro Muriano were worked –with the new technologies brought by industrialisation– by four different, but closely related, English companies: Cordova Exploration Co, Ltd. (1897- 1908), Cerro Muriano Mines, Ltd. (1903-1908), North Cero Muriano Copper Mines, Ltd. (1906-1908) and Cordoba Copper Co., Ltd. (1908-1923). The first of these was from the Newcastle area, and the rest were from London. These companies developed the mines using nine main extraction shafts: Calavera, San Lorenzo, Unión, Excelsior, Santa Victoria, San Rafael, Levante, San Arturo and Santa Isabel; some of these remain while others do not. The separation between the northernmost (Calavera) and the southernmost (San Isabel) shafts is around 2,025m. The distance between the eastern (Unión) and western (San Arturo) extremes is approximately 2,275m. In this territory, the four cited companies generated a complete mining settlement, composed of the above extraction points; a plant of considerable dimensions for washing and concentrating the minerals, calcining them, smelting them, and finally converting the matte into blister copper; and a populated complex of various neighbourhoods composed of houses, shacks and barracks. In addition, there was other infrastructure required to sustain a society (e.g., a school, canteen, theatre, church, hospital, etc.), buildings for work (e.g., offices and a laboratory), and other spaces for production, storage, and distribution.
Communication with the exterior took place through three principal routes demarcating a clear north-south axis: the old road from Córdoba to Almadén (N-432a), the Cañada Real Soriana droveway, and the rail line between Córdoba, Belmez and Almorchón. Along with these routes, there was a dense network of paths and narrow gauge railways throughout the area. It was specifically the train that connected the city of Córdoba with the coal-mining area of Peñarroya-Belmez-Espiel (in the north of the province) that permitted the English to set up their business in a mountainous location that was thus completely dependent on the railway.
At the end of the 19th century, the train did not stop at Cerro Muriano. In fact, there was nothing to motivate the construction of a train station there: neither a consolidated population nor any important economic activity. Thus, one of the primary objectives of the initial English capital investment was to bring the rail line to its properties. Therefore, mining and railways marked the origin of Cerro Muriano as we know it today.
Finally, this study case of Cerro Muriano during the English period found that it was a faithful reflection of its time. Spanish mining in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was heavily influenced by the involvement of foreign companies. This should not be seen as a distinctive feature of Spain as a whole, but rather as the result of an international situation in which mining underwent a kind of premature globalisation. In view of the foregoing, it may be argued that the British Cerro Muriano was a standard product. In it, we can discern many of the features typical of the international expansion and industrialisation of mining and metallurgy operations: the key introduction of new technology in the exploitation of the mine, the fundamental importance of the railway –even though in Cerro Muriano the line already existed, and was not purpose-built to serve English interests–, the eclectic nature of the whole in terms of the technology employed (particularly American in metallurgy, British and German in mining), and the creation of a mining village, in the town- planning and social senses.
In short, Cerro Muriano is a good example of economically-colonialist mining activity that seems to show that the highly topical subject of globalization is not a new phenomenon, since the evolution of technology and the spread use of the same machines on an international scale –among other circumstances– facilitated the homogenization of the world we inhabit today.

Mining is one of the oldest human activities and, together with the associated production of metals, it has often been considered a major agent of civilisation and national development. As a global activity, the footprints of the extractive industry are to be found everywhere in the world, especially as abandoned mining sites. In this article, we understand the mining landscape in a double sense. On one hand, as a material document that can inform us about the mining culture and its evolution. On the other hand, as a complex multi-temporal site shaped jointly by nature and humans. Based on this double perception, this paper has two aims. 1) To read the landscape as a palimpsest that can show how mining activities and the remains of the mining past shape human groups and cultures. 2) To critically discuss the features and values of these landscapes as heritage in service of the contemporary society. In doing so, we combine perspectives of archaeology, ethnography and industrial heritage studies to consider several examples from different types (metallic and non-metallic mining, underground and open-pit mining), chronologies (ancient, modern and contemporary) and geographies (almost every continent in the globe). Our main conclusion is that, despite the singularities of each case, it is possible to define the landscapes of abandoned mining operations and its specific cultures as territories of globalisation that embody a series of heritage values, such as ecological, theoretical, technological, economic, historical, pedagogical, aesthetic, social and human ones

Se han definido dieciséis valores límite de parámetros que miden la calidad del aires que sin dificultad se podrían aplicar a las minas museo subterráneas pues ya se están utilizando en otros sectores industriales españoles. Este trabajo también pretende demostrar que la legislación actual española permite abordar la problemática de la seguridad de la calidad del aire de las minas museo subterráneas sin más que realizar pequeñas adaptaciones que no suponen la definición de nuevas medidas.

El patrimonio geológico es una parte importante del patrimonio natural y posee valor por sí mismo, por lo que debe ser conservado. Muchos elementos geológicos poseen interés científico y/o didácti-co, que los hace singulares y destacar del resto. De su estudio se encargan las investigaciones de geodiversidad y de patrimonio geológico, áreas de investigación recientemente incorporadas al ámbito de la Geología. Este cuadernillo muestra las claves para entender el alcance y significado del estudio de la geodiversidad y del patrimonio geológico, como documento de referencia para todos aquellos que quieran iniciarse o saber más sobre esta temática. Edición Parques Nacionales, Noviembre 2014

España se configuró a lo largo del siglo XIX como uno de los principales suministradores de minerales para la industria de los países europeos avanzados. La crisis del sector puesta de manifiesto a partir de los años ochenta del siglo pasado ha conllevado el cierre de la mayor parte de las explotaciones mineras españolas. La necesidad de reactivación económica de estas comarcas en crisis ha propiciado el surgimiento de iniciativas que pretenden recuperar su rico patrimonio minero como un atractivo turístico. En los últimos años se han abierto numerosos equipamientos turísticos bajo diferentes denominaciones (parques mineros, museos, centros de interpretación…) que han contribuido a rescatar del olvido el patrimonio minero. Elemento del espacio productivo como galerías, cortas, almacenes, talleres, ferrocarriles o castilletes, y del reproductivo, como hospitales o viviendas obreras, se han rehabilitado y acondicionado para mostrar al turista el pasado de esas comunidades.
Spain was along the nineteenth century one of the leading suppliers of industrial minerals to advanced European countries. The crisis from the eighties of the last century led to the closure of most of the Spanish mines. The need for economic recovery in these regions in crisis has led to the emergence of initiatives aimed at recovering its rich mining heritage as a tourist attraction. In recent years numerous tourist facilities have opened under different names (mining parks, museums, interpretation centers ...) that have contributed to rescue from oblivion the mining heritage. Elements of the productive space such as opencast or underground mines, warehouses, workshops, railroads or headframes, and others of the reproductive space, such as hospitals or worker housing, had been rehabilitated and equipped to show to the tourists the history of their communities. La rehabilitación turística de instalaciones mineras abandonadas se ha considerado como una opor‑ tunidad para recuperar un patrimonio que sin un nuevo uso estaría abocado a su irreversible deterioro. Su pérdida no afectaría tan sólo al patrimonio material que representan las propias instalaciones mineras, sino también a la memoria de unos pueblos que durante décadas vivieron de una actividad que marcó su historia. El turismo cultural es uno de los productos emergentes en las últimas décadas, aunque sus raíces se remontan a aquellos primeros viajeros que se desplazaban fundamentalmente para conocer la alta cultura que representaban museos o monumentos. Sin embargo, en las últimas décadas el turismo cultural ha ampliado el conjunto de elementos que lo forman y, a su vez, ha variado la postura del turista, que de ser un mero curioso se ha transformado en un agente activo (Grande Ibarra, 2001; 23) que de acuerdo con sus preferencias puede convertir la existencia de elementos culturales como un

The main objective of this paper is to examine the interventions carried out by the Junta de Andalucía on the mining heritage of Rodalquilar. First, we will explain the historical relevance of this activity for the area. We will also evaluate the methodology and resources used in the valorization of the residual gold and alum mining activity as a seed for the growth of this Almerian village. After a brief survey of Rodalquilar mining history, we will analyze those musealization and revitalization activities developed to make known both the heritage intervention models and their local impact and, ultimately, we will put forward some improvement actions.

The sulphur mines of Hellin, called Las Minas, in the province of Albacete (Spain) were once the most important sulphur mines in Europe. Known and exploited since the 1st century B.C to the end of the 20th century, the mines’ area has been isolated since the king Felipe II bought them in the 16th century in order to constrain the access to the sulphur, considered a strategic resource because it was indispensable in gunpowder’s fabrication.
The recent history of Las Minas has been that of a back scene of the Industrialization and colonialism, where miners and their families (about two thousand people) lived in caves in the same sulphur they extracted without supply of drinking water and electricity.
The exploitation’s closure in 1960 involved the immediate abandon of the area, leaving behind a desolated landscape of ruins’ slap heap, sulphur furnace, the miners’ caves, and a depressed community.
The present work is not only about the mining material culture, the extraction and production process of the sulphur along the time. It is an ethno-historical description focusing on that contrast between a rural habitat of archaic connotations (the caves) and a modern industrial mining exploitation, where no consideration was required in exchange of the plundering.

Gracias al reconocimiento otorgado a Almadén y sus minas por parte de EuChemS, Europa va a señalar en su mapa una región que ha vivido por y para el Mercurio. Este metal tiene mucha historia e interés, tanto en el sector químico como en muchos otros, y ha dado vida a momentos y monumen-tos espectaculares que te recomendamos que conozcas y visites. Para que cuando vengas a Almadén puedas disfrutar plenamente de este enclave fantástico, te recomendamos que leas este artículo, donde queremos que pasees previamente por su historia y conozcas por qué y para qué está ahí el mercurio y que comprendas cómo ha sido fundamental en esta región y en su vida, el tener este metal en sus tierras. Inicialmente en esta contribución se describe qué significa este reconocimiento y cómo y cuándo se otorgó. De igual forma se presentan unas fantásticas contribuciones de cuatro expertos que nos permiten vivir y entender mejor una historia que se debe conocer y en la que la química y otras ciencias fundamentales han estado y estarán siempre presentes.

Se pasa revista al papel de la Ordenación del Territorio en el sector minero, con especial incidencia en las consecuencias del cierre de minas y la transformación de éstas en parques mineros como forma de contribución al desarrollo sostenible del territorio.

David Finch - Mackenzie Valley Land and Water Board
Ryan Silke - Yellowknife Historical Society

The Northwest Territories has been investigated for potential mineral resources since the 1700s. Its contemporary settler history was strongly driven by mineral extraction, with major strikes made across the north in the early 20th Century. Despite the significance of mining to territorial history and economy, the archaeological investigation of mining sites is infrequent. Few of these locations are Bordenized, much less recognized. This is due partly to the priority of remediation concerns but also likely due to the deprioritization of settler history as the territorial narrative is redefined. Nonetheless, the Northwest Territories is dotted with hundreds of locations that offer insights into the early modern industrial, commercial, and social transformation of the territory. 

This presentation outlines mining-related archaeological investigations in the Northwest Territories over the past decade. It focuses on two sites in the territory’s South Slave region, the Pine Point Base Camp (JfPo-1) and the Genx Prospector Cabin (JfPo-2). Both sites relate to lead and zinc mining operations near the former community of Pine Point, with occupations spanning the years 1928 to 1951. Comment is made on the scale and nature of development, and on the environmental and social legacy of mining in the region. Lastly the paper describes the ongoing registration and recognition of industrial archaeological sites in the Northwest Territories.

Namen tega prispevka je osvetliti veliko rudarsko nesrečo v Trbovljah 26. novembra 1864, ko so zaradi zadušitve z jamskim plinom življenje izgubili štirje rudarji. Vest o grozni nesreči »od Trebovlj na Štajarskem« je presegla lokalne meje zaradi objave v Novicah.

Coal deposits in the Slieveardagh hills of east Tipperary consist of very high quality but fractured and thin layers of anthracite which outcrop on the edges of the uplands.  Coal mining has left a significant legacy of industrial buildings and landscape features in an otherwise predominantly agricultural environment.  To date over 1000 features associated with mining from the 19th to the later 20th century have been identified by the author and the local community, including individual ‘basset’ pits, chimneys and engine houses, collieries, manager’s residences, miner’s cottages and designed villages. Coal attracted landlords and mining companies, skilled workers and revolutionaries. Although the mines never achieved large-scale production, the presence of coal was a significant factor in how the historic landscape and social fabric of Slieveardagh was formed. This map shows the locations of mining heritage sites in Slieveardagh. This is a draft map, produced using QGIS. Please note that all of these sites are on private property. For more information please contact the Slieveardagh Mining Group, the Old Schoolhouse, Commons, Ballingarry, Co. Tipperary.

In this paper we aim to reflect on the conceptual framework of Archaeology from our own practical experience (this is not a theoretical review). We will focus on the application of archaeological methods to the study of the modern world (as an historical period); more specifically, this is a paper on archaeology of industrialization. We have selected two different case studies to offer a demonstrative example of cross-disciplinary use of research techniques and sources of information: the Cerro Muriano mining and metallurgical site (Cordoba, Spain) and the Companhia Paulista de Estradas de Ferro general workshops in Jundiaí (São Paulo, Brazil). Finally, we will use these samples to defend the role of Archaeology in the analysis of wider historical phenomena, like economic colonialism and globalization processes

Las Minas es un antiguo poblado minero situado a unos 30 kilómetros al sur de Hellín (Albacete). Allí se extraía azufre desde antiguo, posiblemente desde época de los romanos, aunque su auge comienza con su compra por parte de Felipe II en el siglo XVI con el fin estratégico de monopolizar la producción de este importante ingrediente de la pólvora. El proceso de Industrialización del siglo XIX y la enajenación de la riqueza minera en aras del progreso realizada tras la Revolución Gloriosa de 1868, Las Minas se convierte en un escenario para la colonización, inglesa primero e interna después, utilizará presos políticos tras la Guerra Civil, y todo mientras los mineros vivían en cuevas sin agua corriente ni electricidad hasta la clausura definitiva en 1970.

Con el cierre definitivo de las minas de Cantabria se buscaron diferentes soluciones económicas para paliar la crisis. Una de éstas ha sido el turismo. Desde la apertura del Parque de la Naturaleza de Cabárceno en 1990 hasta la actualidad se han llevado a cabo varios proyectos turísticos que han tenido como base el pasado minero. En este artículo se analizan las actuaciones realizadas y en proyecto que han tenido en cuenta este patrimonio minero.
When the mines in Cantabria closed down, different economical solutions were looked for in order to alleviate this crisis. One of these solutions has been tourism. Since the Nature Park of Cabárceno was opened in 1990 until today several projects have been carried out to retrieve the mining heritage. This paper analyses all the projects carried out in Cantabria where the mining heritage has been or will be a basic element to consider in the near future.

At the beginning of the 16th century, silver was found in the Jáchymovsko area. The exploitation of this valuable resource caused the place to grow rapidly. In 1520, five thousand inhabitants lived there and it was called Sankt Joachimsthal. Soon it became famous for the silver coins that were first minted in he Royal mint. They were called Joachimsthalers and they gave their name to the Thaler and the dollar. In addition to silver ore (of which in 1885 were produced 11.35 tonnes), cobalt, nickel, bismuth and uranium ore were also extracted. At the beginning of the 20th century, Marie Curie Skłodowská discovered, in tons of pitchblende ore containing uraninite from Joachimsthal, the element radium, for which she won the Nobel prize in chemistry. Until the First World War this was the only known source of radium in the world. The first radon spa in the world was founded in Joachimsthal in 1906. In 1911 the first spa building was constructed with healing water that came via several kilometre long pipes from the Svornost mine. After the Communist Party took control of Czechoslovakia in 1948, large prison camps were established in the town and around it. Opponents of the new regime were forced to mine uranium ore under very harsh conditions. All the extracted uranium ore was exported to the USSR. Uranium mining ceased in 1964. The radioactive thermal springs which arise in the former uranium mine are used under the supervision of doctors for the treatment of patients with nervous and rheumatic disorders. They make use of the constantly produced radioactive gas radon (222Rn) dissolved in the water (Radon therapy).

The Black Mountain Arsenic Mine Historic Landscape District meets the criteria of eligibility for listing in the National Register of Historic Places (National Register) at the local level of significance for its direct associations with an important phase of regional mining in a rural landscape context, and for its design significance as a largely intact example of arsenic mining technology. The rural landscape district meets National Register Criterion A for its association with regional patterns of mineral exploitation typical of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, and with the unique history of arsenic mining. It is also eligible under Criterion C for its largely intact representation of the unique technology of arsenic extraction. Overall, the landscape district retains good integrity of location, setting, design, materials, workmanship, feeling, and association. The period of significance is 1923-1927. Articles of incorporation for the Black Mountain Arsenic Mining Company were filed in 1923. The period of active exploration, construction, mining, and processing ended in 1927, when accidental damage forced its closure.

Hedges/Tumco Historic Townsite is an abandoned gold mining town, located in a desert valley in the Cargo Muchacho Mountains, Imperial County, California. It has previously been designated California Historic Landmark No. 182, and has been recorded as site 4-Imp-3297-H; additional site numbers used for features at the site are 4-Imp-3298-H, -3200-H, - 3301-H, and-3302-H. Visible remains at the site include residential areas, two cemeteries, a commercial district, and a company district, closely associated with many mining-related features, including open pits and many shafts at the east end of the town in the valley head. The site covers about 260 acres. The project described in this report undertook archival research, aerial photography, oral histories, and limited test excavations, to derive a National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) eligibility assessment for the Hedges/Tumco Historic Townsite (Hedges-Tumco) located in lower Tumco Wash. Excavation of 100 test units (29.5 m1), limited surface collection, and scale drawing of selected structures, was used to sample more than 55 features and feature complexes. More than 2,500 catalogue entries of artifacts represented domestic, commer- cial, structural, and industrial items. Recovery of datable artifacts, fragile but well-preserved materials, and faunal and botanical remains, attests to a strong potential for research on technology, consumer patterns, and ethnic differences. Complementary information was yielded by abundant archival records. Historic photographs document the nature and location of the schoolhouse, Catholic church, company boarding house hospital, several saloons, and other specific buildings. Remains of mining and milling include three major mines and associated buildings, 10-stamp, 40-stamp, and 100-stamp mill remains, and a cyanide treatment plant. Based on these data, Hedges/Tumco is recommended eligible at the local and statewide levels for the NRHP, as per 36 CFR 800 60.4, Criteria (a), (c), and (d). The Hedges/Tumco Historic Townsite meets the 11 guidelines of National Register of Historic Places Bulletin 36, has an easily definable boundary ( excluding ubiquitous traces of mining peripheral to the site), and possesses sufficient integrity to support a recommendation of NRHP eligibility. Equally important is the demonstrated potential of Hedges/Tumco to yield additional information important in history (36 CFR 60.4).

El yeso es un material constructivo muy frecuente en la construcción vernácula de buena parte de la península ibérica, sobre todo en las áreas en las que la presencia andalusí fue más intensa y prolongada.
Los tradicionales hornos en los que se producía el yeso, que con su elevadas chimeneas se recortaban sobre el paisaje de poblaciones y parajes, desaparecen. En este trabajo se aborda la producción y papel del yeso como elemento de la cultura material dentro de contexto local de la comarca del Campo de Hellín.

Agradecimientos: a Pablo Rivas Palomo, geólogo del Parque Natural Cabo de Gata-Níjar.El principal objetivo de este trabajo es analizar las intervenciones realizadas por la Junta de Andalucía sobre el patrimonio minero de Rodalquilar. Atenderemos a la relevancia histórica de esta actividad y evaluaremos los métodos y recursos utilizados para poner en valor los restos de la minería del alumbre y del oro como germen de formación de esta población almeriense. Para ello, tras un breve estudio de su historia minera, analizaremos la musealización y puesta en valor desarrolladas hasta ahora y su impacto local, realizando algunas propuestas de mejora.The main aim of this paper is to examine the interventions carried out by the Junta de Andalucía on the mining heritage of Rodalquilar. First, we will explain the historical relevance of this activity for the area. We will also evaluate the methodology and resources used in the valorization of the residual gold and alum mining activity as a seed...

"Krzemionki Prehistoric Striped Flint Mining Region" is a complex of archaeological sites situated in South-East Poland upon Kamienna river, in the northern part of świętokrzyskie province. The monuments refer both to extracting flint raw material as well as its processing, but also to mining settlement. The group making up the region consists of several prehistoric exploitation fields along with a few hundred settlement sites, dated back to the period between the mid-fourth millennium BC and the mid-second millennium BC. Primeval mine objects
of the region are mostly characterized by an established cultural post-mining landscape in the form of mine output heaps and post-mineshaft hollows. What is more, they are also characterized by preserved underground excavations, which serve as an example of the most advanced mining technique of the Younger Stone Age. In the subject region we know both mines bored in opencast system (open-pit and niche-gallery ones) as well as deep mines (tunnel, pillar-chamber and chamber ones), the biggest of which are as deep as 9 metres with the surface of excavation of over 500 m2. In excavations greatly preserved transportation tunnels, miners’ working stands, pillars supporting the roof, mining tools made of crystal stones, antlers or flints are being discovered. What is more, the discoveries include even remains of wooden constructions playing their role in keeping safety and well-organized underground work. The most interesting finds include cave paintings made with the use of charcoal coming from charcoal torches. The paintings prove rich spiritual culture of contemporary miners. These unique subterranean spaces, best examined on the „Krzemionki Opatowskie” field, have been gradually protected and opened to the public since 1960s. Today tourists can explore over 460 metres long underground route presenting several Stone Age mines of different types along with the geology of striped flint deposit as well as another 1300 metres of on surface exhibition path, where post-mining landscape plus natural values of protected area („Krzemionki Opatowskie” Reserve and Natura 2000 „Krzemionki” site) can be admired. A supplementation to the route is a primeval settlement reonstructed in the proximity of mines. It presents not only Neolithic and early Bronze Age human buildings, but also their everyday life reconstructed during outdoor events and archaeological workshops. In 2012 a new Archaeological Museum with exhibition dedicated to the history of flint use, educational and conference rooms, labs, offices, storage rooms for museum collections as well as tourist information centre.
Mining infrastructure with flint workshops, tracks of buildings covering the pits, encampments and mining paths as well as numerous settlements scattered in Kamienna River basin among them, accompany Krzemionki Prehistoric Striped Flint Mining Region, which creates unique in the world mining area whose inhabitants  earned their living for almost 2000 years extracting, dressing as well as distributing striped flint. In the subject area three prehistoric flint exploitation sites distinct from others with their size and state of preservation. These are „Borownia” and „Korycizna” exploitation sites and the „Krzemionki Opatowskie” complex of mines - including about 78,5 ha and 4000 mineshafts world’s biggest object extracting this material in the Stone Age and in early stage of the Bronze Age. Equally remarkable is a Neolithic population settlement situated on a fortified hill of „Gawroniec” in Ćmielów, where archaeological research unveiled outbuilding objects and flint processing sites, in addition to traces of residence. These four monuments, as the most representative for the whole region, became fundamental for taking effort to prepare the motion for inscription on the UNESCO World Heritage List. In 2016, Krzemionki mines were put on the so called tentative list as an official Polish candidate for inscription. Between 2016 and 2018 Historical-Archaeological Museum in Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski, in cooperation with the National Heritage Board of Poland in Warsaw prepared a nomination motion which was accepted in the UNESCO World Heritage Centre in Paris in January 2018. Works over its assessment are being proceeded currently along with preparation of the recommendation for the World Heritage Committee.

This article explores the vagaries of locating value in California’s state park system in general and Malakoff Diggins State Historic Park in particular. The practice of listing and delisting for purposes of preservation relies on accepting the premise that some places are inherently superior and more worthy of public esteem than others, and that such distinctions are detectable, indeed, measurable in gradations. In this article, I aim to undermine our confidence in these kind of valuations and the designations they proliferate through scrutiny of two occasions where value is ranked geographically. I compare Frederick Law Olmsted Jr’s 1928 statewide survey of California that identified land for acquisition as parks, with a 2011 deficit-reduction measure earmarking 70 specific state parks for closure. These two lists demonstrate how value is immanent to social relations. The article contributes to examinations of value within Human Geography by developing a relational axiology that attends to the materials, forces and practices that hold together when value becomes subject to a project of fixing. I challenge the exclusively positive conception of value in on-going policy work and outline how valuation as a technology works to produce the public in whose name it is performed. What kinds of justifications emerge when fine-grained negotiations about revenue streams come up against long-held principals about the importance of nature and cultural history? Geographical value, in the same way as any other kind of value, is not found but is made by the very act of its enunciation. Accepting this requires us to think more carefully about how and why value’s identification leads invariably to its uneven distribution.

The mining site of Sierra Jaeña (La Nava de Ricomalillo, Toledo) encompasses a large number of geological and mining peculiarities that stand out at a national level. This is why the Town Council of La Nava de Ricomalillo has requested the execution of a Geological and Mining Heritage socialization and dissemination project. Historically, the gold mines of Sierra Jaeña have been exploited since the Roman ages, with other intermittent actions carried out during the Medieval Ages and the 16th to 18th centuries, until it reached the 19th century when it became one of the biggest gold exploitations in Spain. It was abandoned during the first decades of the 20th century. After centuries of mining development in the area, the heritage legacy is considerable. From the geological side, it represents a peculiar and isolated case for the center south of the Iberian Peninsula. From the archaeological point of view, we can appreciate many remains, among which we highlight a couple of hundred meters of galleries, a munitions dump as well as the remains of the mining village, where we can still perfectly see some features like a pool, houses and ovens. The proposed actions pretend to recover this heritage in its natural environment, trying to preserve it while the task of social dissemination is fulfilled. The aim of this project is to show the mining processes, methods and techniques that were used, to facilitate its accessibility, etc.; that is to say, make all the related to the exploitation and transformation of the surroundings by human action during the centuries, visible and understandable to all.

Magaz Molina, J. y Marcos Toribio, E. (2019) «La Placa de Ponferrada: apogeo y ocaso del nodo minero-ferroviario de RENFE en el Bierzo», en Mansilla Plaza, L. y Mata Perelló J. M. (Coords.) 'El Patrimonio geológico y minero. Identidad y motor de desarrollo'. XVII Congreso Internacional sobre Patrimonio Geológico y Minero. XXI Sesión científica de la SEDPGYM. Almadén, 21-24 de septiembre de 2017' IGME: Madrid.  Abstract: The RENFE’s facilities in Ponferrada, known as "the workshops of La Placa", played a pivotal role in the industrial development of the city, in association with the mining company Minero Siderúrgica de Ponferrada (MSP), and the National Company of Electricity (ENDESA). These facilities show the RENFE interest in taking advantage of the coal and electricity generated in the Sil basin and the efforts to guarantee the supply of coal in the Spain autarky scenario. The paper describes the origin and development of new railway station in Ponferrada, which until now have hardly been reflected in the scientific literature and highlights the relevance of one of the most important poles of mining-rail activity in the country during the second half of the 20th century. At the spot known as Cemba de Cuatrovientos, RENFE provided a local steam locomotive repair workshop (roundhouse), planned to support the coal trains, a marshalling yard to organize the convoys, as well as an electrical power substation aimed at electrifying the railroad linked to the mountain pass. These complementary facilities were along with a set of modern loading docks loaders, used for the mining companies to dump the coal in order to be transported through the state network.