Early Placer Mining in Saxony. Part 2: Archaeological Investigations at the Sauschwemme – New Evidence for Tin Placer Mining during the Bronze Age, Hallstatt Period, and High Middle Ages

The remains of the extraction of alluvial and eluvial cassiterite by placer mining in the Ore Mountains have been identified by LIDAR data and analysed by mining archaeologists at the Archaeological Heritage Office Saxony (LfA). High-resolution digital terrain models (DTM) already provide a preliminary interpretation of these relics, which helps to strategically determine former work areas in which archaeological investigations need to be conducted. Using archaeological and scientific methods, the mining archaeologists have already proved Bronze Age mining within a streamwork near Schellerhau in the Eastern Ore Mountains in 2018. In subsequent years, we refined our approach to understanding the stratigraphic sequence of exploitation – what we call the “stratigraphy of work areas” – and used it to identify the oldest traces of extraction within a placer- mining relic (see part 1 in this issue). The method was tested and proofed successfully in the “Sauschwemme” streamwork near Johanngeorgenstadt in the Western Ore Mountains. We identified its stratigraphically oldest work area in the northern part where we began our detailed research of the terrain and discovered Bronze Age placer mining. Radiocarbon data available so far indicate prehistoric cassiterite streaming. They point to a certain continuity from the Early Bronze Age to the Hallstatt Period, when the tin deposits of the Ore Mountains played a role within the supply of tin to Europe. The access to and control of these tin placer deposits were likely of strategic relevance for the Bronze Age and Early Iron Age cultures of Europe, as was the miners’ knowledge of the most productive tin placers and the technical know-how of extraction and dressing of the tin mineral cassiterite. Tin was mined in the immediate vicinity until at least the High Middle Ages. The insights of our preliminary investigations provide the basis for the EU Interreg Saxony/Czech Republic project “ArchaeoTin. Archaeology in World Heritage – Tin Mining Landscapes,” in which German and Czech mining archaeologists have been investigating tin placer mining in cooperation with researchers from other disciplines since 2023. Many of the tin mining relicts are also part of the UNESCO World Heritage “Erzgebirge/Krušnohoří Mining Region”.