US EPA

526310 

Journal Article 

Dendrochronological studies of wood from mediaeval mines of polymetallic ores in Lower Silesia (SW Poland) 

Szychowska-Krapiec, E 

2007 

Yes 

Geochronometria
ISSN: 1733-8387 

26 

61-68 

English 

The paper presents results of dendrochronological dating of wood encountered in abandoned mines in the eastern part of Lower Silesia. The research was carried out in gold mines in Zloty Stok, Glucholazy, and Zlate Hory, a polymetallic-ore mine in Marcinkow as well as old mines in the Sowie Mts: the Silberloch adit, an adit on the hillside of Mala Sowa, a graphite mine, and the silver and lead mine Augusta. Altogether 69 samples were taken from timbers of coniferous tree species: Pinus sylvestris, A bies alba, Picea abies and Larix decidua. The oldest wood, from the turn of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was encountered in the gold mines in Date Hory and Glucholazy. In the gold mine in Zloty Stok, graphite mine in Sowie Mrs and in Marcinkow there was identified wood from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Generally, timbers from the nineteenth century were prevailing, and in three cases there was even encountered relatively young twentieth-century wood in the gold mine in Zloty Stok and in the Silberloch adit. The analyses carried out were only preliminary. Broader, interdisciplinary investigations, including dendrochronology, archaeology, geology, mining, and palaeobotany, would substantially contribute for learning the history of the mining in the whole region. 

dendrochronological dating; tree-ring analysis; mines; SW Poland