Life and Work at the Bronze Age Mine of Prigglitz

What did Bronze Age miners earn for their arduous efforts underground? Was copper mining a part- time activity of peasants, a full-time job of professional miners or was it slave work under the control of elites? Although metal production and distribution are regarded as prime movers of social development during the European Bronze Age, the underlying principles of labour organisation and specialization remain poorly understood. This is partially caused by a lack of in-depth studies of the settlements associated with mining, because archaeologists used to focus on the technological facilities (e.g. furnaces) alone, leaving aside the remains of everyday life and other production activities. The overall project aim is to investigate the social organisation and the operation of an Alpine copper mine in relation to its networks of communication and exchange. We propose a micro- regional case study of the recently excavated Late Bronze Age mining settlement of Prigglitz-Gasteil (ca 1050 to 900 BC) in Lower Austria, which provides excellent conditions for studying the rise and fall of a mining site. Thanks to its outstanding state of preservation, the site allows for a multi-faceted approach to copper mining, bronze working and its social aspects. The objectives are: 1) to compare organisational models of Bronze Age copper mines in the Eastern Alps, including cross-craft interactions with the contemporaneous salt mine of Hallstatt; 2) to investigate intra-site activity patterns; 3) to analyse the chane opératoire from copper extraction to the production of bronze objects; 4) to reconstruct food and energy supply at the mining site of Prigglitz-Gasteil. As theoretical basis, the concept of the chane opératoire will be introduced to explore the links between technology and society and to investigate knowledge and tradition. A bundle of innovative methods (geochemistry, micro-debris, use-wear analysis) will be employed to study site formation processes for the first time in Central European mining contexts. Additionally, a broad spectrum of methodologies from archaeology, archaeometallurgy, archaeobotany, archaeozoology and geophysical prospection will be combined, including a variety of analyses (trace elements, lead isotopes, metallography, radiocarbon dating, anthracology, core drillings, geoelectric profiles etc.), to highlight the role of small-scale copper producers. For the first time, the process of recycling will be in the focus of archaeometallurgical investigations in Central Europe. Thus, the project output will also substantially advance the methodology of settlement archaeology and improve future excavation strategies. The main researchers involved are Peter Trebsche (project leader), Andreas Heiss (archaeobotany), Marianne Mödlinger (archaeometallurgy) and Roderick Salisbury (geochemistry, intra-site analysis).

Life and Work at the Bronze Age Mine of Prigglitz At Prigglitz-Gasteil, located at the easternmost fringe of the Alps in Lower Austria, the excellently preserved remains of a Late Bronze Age copper mining site were excavated from 2010 to 2014. The aims of the subsequent research project (2017-2021) were to investigate the social organisation and the operation of an Alpine copper mine in order to improve our knowledge of prehistoric miners' work and life in relation to the networks of communication and exchange. As a result of our project, the Late Bronze Age site of Prigglitz-Gasteil can be characterized a regional centre of copper production and bronze working based on the evidence of an openwork copper ore mine and nearby bronze casting workshops. The copper ore mine was in operation from ca. 1050 BC to 780 BC. It produced very pure copper, smelted from chalcopyrite, which must have been sought after in the Late Bronze Age, when high-impurity copper alloys dominated in Central Europe. The Prigglitz copper was distributed in the surrounding region. Several hoards of casting cakes were discovered, whose chemical composition corresponds with the Prigglitz ores and copper finds. Shortly after 920 BC, a mining subsidence occurred, and a landslide destroyed one part of the large opencast. This catastrophe did not interrupt mining activities but led to a change in the spatial layout of the workshops and dwellings associated with the mine that reflects a different work organisation. During the early period at Prigglitz (ca. 1050 to 920 BC), the mine had been operated continuously. The different work steps in copper production followed a strict spatial pattern. After the subsidence event (ca. 920 BC), all attested activities - like copper beneficiation, bronze working, butchering, food processing, textile, bone and antler working - alternated in rapid succession, at least on the two working terraces excavated, thus provoking the picture of a rather loose, uncoordinated organisation of the mine. With the in-depth geophysical, archaeobotanical, archaeozoological and archaeometallurgical investigations performed during the project, the site of Prigglitz-Gasteil now provides abundant data for comparison with other interdisciplinary studies of copper mining sites in the Eastern Alps, like the Mitterberg, Kitzbühel and Schwaz-Brixlegg districts, and the salt mine at Hallstatt. As regards the mining technique, Prigglitz represents the first prehistoric large-scale opencast mine in the Eastern Alps that can be reconstructed thanks to the geophysical surveys, complemented with deep core drillings for ground-truthing. Thanks to intensive sampling, Prigglitz provided a wealth of charred plant remains, including processed food stuffs that were probably delivered to the mining site. Thus, for the first time, the plant-based cuisine and consumption practices of Bronze Age copper miners were investigated in detail.