Glacial archaeology in Austria - Gold mining sites in Carinthia (original) (raw)

2022, Vestiges des cimes. Archéologie glaciaire

This is the English translation of the article “L'archéologie glaciaire en Autriche: les mines d'or de Carinthie” in the exhibition catalogue “Vestiges des cimes. Archéologie glaciaire”. Exhibition presented at the Musée-Château d'Annecy from 23 June to 10 October 2022. If you wish to cite from this paper please refer to the French text in the publication. For several decades now our Earth has been warming up due to man-made climate change and, as a direct consequence of this now accelerated process, the ice of glaciers and at the poles is melting. During this process unique evidence from the past surfaces, which has led to the founding of a comparatively young special field of archaeology: glacial archaeology (also: ice patch or snow patch archaeology). This field deals in general with archaeological sites or finds in the ice (from the cryosphere), whereby the temporal and thematic framework ranges from the Stone Age to the 20th century, and the spatial scope covers all areas where glaciers and ice surfaces or permafrost soils exist. It was assumed up to the 1980s that high alpine areas were hardly visited by humans, but by now it has been established that these areas were frequented seasonally since the end of the Würm glacial stage some 12,000 years ago. Reasons for people of prehistoric periods to visit high altitudes were the crossing of passes, hunting, the search for raw materials such as flint, rock crystal, ores, etc., as well as the cultivation of high pasture. Archaeological research up to the 1990s, with few exceptions, was mainly concerned with exploring the valleys and low mountain ranges. In 1991 this changed suddenly with the discovery of the mummified “Ötzi” and his equipment at the Tisenjoch in the South Tyrolean part of the Ötztaler Alps. This find was the starting signal for a broader archaeological exploration of the glacial regions and already ice-free high alpine areas in Austria. In high-altitude mining regions over 2,500 meters above sea level in the High Tauern in the Austrian federal states of Carinthia and Salzburg, objects of organic materials such as wood, leather and textiles were preserved for centuries under ice and snow patches and in the frozen ground. In the project “Modern Age Textiles from Gold Mining Areas in Carinthia,” which is run in cooperation with the project “Glacial Archaeology in the Austrian Alps”, miner´s apparel is studied together with all other fabrics used in mining.