Book Review

SOCIAL APPROACHES TO THE INDUSTRIAL PAST / The Archaeology and
Anthropology of Mining Edited by A Bernard Knapp, Vincent C Pigott and
Eugenia W Herbert 1998  306 pp, 35 illus, 6 tables.  HB Routledge,
London and New York.  Price £55.00

Eighteen books in one!  Eighteen chapters by eighteen authors on all
aspects of Mining Sociology.  Most mining books concentrate on what is
left, the ruins, the mining techniques and the history of mining.  This
book takes an innovative stance and concentrates on the lives of miners
and their associates.  It is based on a series of papers given at an
international conference held in Italy in 1996

“Social approaches to the archaeology and anthropology of mining” by A
Bernard Knapp, Department of Archaeology, University of Glasgow,
Scotland,  brings together some unlikely bed fellows: archaeologists,
ethnohistorians and anthropologists.  Together they examine a common
theme which encompasses: gender, power strategies and labour
exploitation; imperialism and colonialism; and production and
technology.  Such themes weave together a social theory essential for
the study of the industrial past.

“The fabric and structure of Australian mining settlements” by Peter
Bell, Historical Research Pty, Adelaide, Australia, shows the diversity
of mining townships, from random scattered tents to model villages, laid
out by government surveyors with wide roads based on a square grid
plan.  Ethnic influences caused variations from Cornish type stone
cottages to Chinese huts in thatch and bush timber based on a Guangdong
province design.  

“Gender and community structure on Australian colonial gold fields” by
Susan Lawrence, Department of Archaeology, La Trobe University,
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, presents the feminist outlook. 
Dwellings associated with mining settlements are no longer assumed to be
huts of single miners, and the image of mining as an exotic male domain
is exchanged with that of the role of woman and families in the shaping
of gold field culture.

“Bedroom politics.  Ladies of the night and men of the day” by Alexy
Simmons, New Zealand Historical Places Trust, Hamilton, New Zealand,
highlights the importance of females prostitutes in the mining towns of
USA and New Zealand.  Spatial controls on prostitution often accelerated
the growth of a class system among the demimonde.

“Power and the industrial mining community in the American West” by
Donald L Hardesty, Department of Anthropology, University of Nevarda,
Reno, Nevada, USA, focuses on archaeological approaches to the power
structure of the silver-, gold-, and copper mining communities in the
American West.  The social and cultural context of nineteenth- and
twentieth-century industrial capitalism is compared with alternative
towns which offered saloons, gambling houses, brothels, labour unions’
cheap housing and more individualistic lifestyles.  

“The mining camp as community” by William A Douglass, Basque Studies
Program, University of Nevada, Reno, Nevada, USA, indicates that the
social anthropological literature on mining is surprisingly sparse.   In
part this stems from the mining camp’s dubious status as a community
with any degree of permanence.  Drawing upon field and archival
research, it is suggested that in the last 50 years of the 19th century
there was an established mining community in the American West disposed
to relocate whenever there was a new discovery.  A focus without a
locus!

“Mining, colonialism and cultural contact.  European miners and the
indigenous population in the sixteenth-century Arctic” by Robert M
Ehrenreich, National Research Council, Washington, DC, USA, is a
fascinating account of an Elizabethan explorer, Martin Frobisher who
travelled to Baffin Island in 1576.  His failure to have the ore assayed
resulted in the fiasco of bringing 1136 tons of worthless rock back to
England. 

“Find the ekijunjumira.  Iron mine discovery, ownership and power among
the Toro of Uganda” by S Terry Childs, National Park Service,
Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, USA, is an unusual account of
mining.  A person was considered to be very lucky when he found the
glittery stones dug up by the ekijunjumira beetle because the discovery
could bring him wealth.  Recent ethnographical interviews with elderly
iron workers reveal the social and politico-economic consequences of
such a discovery.  Because of its importance to the Toro economy mining
of these stones was banned by the early twentieth century colonialists.  

“Mining as microcosm in precolonial sub-Saharan Africa.  An overview” by
Eugenia W Herbert, Department of History, Mount Holyoke College, South
Hadley, Massachusetts, USA, is an account of the three primary metals:
iron, gold and silver that were worked before the colonial period.  The
`culture of mining’ not only involved technology, but also religious
beliefs and rituals involving the use of medicines, sacrifices and
invocations to ancestors and deities, the imposition of sexual and
menstrual taboos, and so on. 

“A risky business.  Death, injury and religion in Cornish mining c
1780-1870” by John Rule, depicts Cornish metal mining as the most
dangerous in Britain with a death rate of two and a half times that of
coal mining.  Methodism helped the community to come to terms with this
situation.  The role of funeral ceremonies and of fatalism as expressed
in black humour is also considered.

“Silver shackles and copper collars.  Race, class and labor in the
Arizona mining industry from the eighteenth century until World War II”
by Thomas E Sheridan, Arizona State Museum, University of Arizona,
Tucson, Arizona, USA, describes the lure of silver and gold during the
Spanish colonial period and the early Anglo-American territorial
periods.  The labour problems are graphically described e g   paying
Mexican miners less than Anglo-Irish miners and during World War One and
branding striking miners as saboteurs.  But after World War Two the
Mexican and American veterans united and regained power for the unions.

“Producing copper in the eastern Alps during the second millennium BC”
by Stephen Shennan, Institute of Archaeology, University College,
London, takes us back to Bronze Age times.  The results of recent
fieldwork at St Veit-Klinglberg are described.  This was a base for a
small community which mined and smelted copper.  The site in common with
its contemporaries in the region, was fortified, which may indicate the
threat of raiding.

“Prehistoric copper mining in the context of emerging community craft
specialization in north east Thailand” by Vincent C Pigott, Museum of
Applied Science Centre for Archaeology (MASCA), University of
Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, is based on excavations
carried out by the Thailand Archaeometallurgy Project (TAP) at Phu Lon
on the Mekong River.  It is proposed that `mining expeditions’ extracted
just sufficient amounts of ore to trade with villagers downstream.

“Small-scale mining and smelting in ancient Cyprus” by Vasiliki
Kassianidou, Department of History and Archaeology, University of
Cyprus, Nicosia, Cyprus, stresses the importance of the copper smelting
site of Almyras.  Its proximity to the ancient city of Idalion has
raised the possibility that this is source which supplied the kingdom of
Idalion with copper.

“Exploiting the desert frontier.  The logistics and politics of ancient
Egyptian mining expeditions” by Ian Shaw, Institute of Archaeology,
University College London, England, provides an interesting insight into
the wealth of the pharaohs.  How were the precious metals obtained? 
What are the links between the twelfth dynasty fortresses in Lower Nubia
and the exploitation of Nubian copper and gold resources? 
Archaeological sources provide a glimpse of their likely origins and way
of life.  

“Gold-miners and mining at Bin Umm Fawakir” by Carol Meyer, The Oriental
Institute, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA, describes a
fifth to sixth century Byzantine/Coptic gold-mining town in the eastern
desert of Egypt.  Gold was extracted from quartz veins in the
Precambrian granite, so mining, ore reduction and washing required a
large labour force: the population of ancient Fawakhir is estimated at
over 1000.  

“On the value of mixed methods in studying mining communities” by David
Killick, Department of Anthropology and Department of Materials Science
and Engineering, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, USA, results in
some revolutionary questions: Why bother with a social history of
mining? and why now?  The answer, in short is that these studies have
lagged behind those of say, factory workers, fisher folk or farmers. 
The author goes on to say that this book has achieved its objectives in
mingling the three disciplines: archaeology, ethnohistory and
anthropology in the studies of mining and miners.

“Mining communities chaines operatoires and sociotechnical systems” by
Bryan Pfaffenberger, Division of Technology, Culture and Communication,
School of Engineering and Applied Science, University of Virginia,
Charlottesville, Virginia, USA,  poses the question “Is the term `mining
community’ an oxymoron?  A study of this book will soon challenge the
myth of the isolated `mining camp’, in which the rude cabins and tents
of temporary residents, exclusively male are found.  He concludes that
it is necessary to look beyond technology and look at the human and
social dimensions of community life to obtain the full picture.

Whilst walking round old mine sites I cannot have been the only one who
has wondered at the amazing number of man hours required to create what
is now in ruins.  All too often these sites are in inhospitable
locations and one cannot help but be impressed by the sheer tenacity of
the old miners and the blood, sweat and heartbreak which must have been
a part of their everyday lives.  This book helps to put it all in
perspective, and all in all this book provides a refreshing approach to
an old theme.


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