He also captured gold mines in Thrace for minting coinage, eventually producing 26 tons per year. Philip II of Macedon, the father of Alexander the Great, captured the gold mines of Mount Pangeo in 357 BC to fund his military campaigns. The marble was shipped away and was later found by archaeologists to have been used in buildings including the tomb of Amphipolis. At other mines, such as on the island of Thassos, marble was quarried by the Parians after they arrived in the 7th century BC. Although they had over 20,000 slaves working them, their technology was essentially identical to their Bronze Age predecessors. Examples include the silver mines of Laurium, which helped support the Greek city state of Athens. Mining in Europe has a very long history. Ancient Greece and Rome ДЄncient Roman development of the Dolaucothi Gold Mines, Wales

The miners crushed the ore and ground it to a fine powder before washing the powder for the gold dust. One of the complexes is shown in one of the earliest known maps. These mines are described by the Greek author Diodorus Siculus, who mentions fire-setting as one method used to break down the hard rock holding the gold. The gold mines of Nubia were among the largest and most extensive of any in Ancient Egypt. Mining in Egypt occurred in the earliest dynasties. Quarries for turquoise and copper were also found at Wadi Hammamat, Tura, Aswan and various other Nubian sites on the Sinai Peninsula and at Timna. Later, between 26 BC, large building projects required expeditions abroad to the area of Wadi Maghareh in order to secure minerals and other resources not available in Egypt itself. At first, Egyptians used the bright green malachite stones for ornamentations and pottery. Ancient Egypt ДЄncient Egyptians mined malachite at Maadi. Mines of a similar age in Hungary are believed to be sites where Neanderthals may have mined flint for weapons and tools. At this site Paleolithic humans mined hematite to make the red pigment ochre. The oldest-known mine on archaeological record is the Ngwenya Mine in Eswatini (Swaziland), which radiocarbon dating shows to be about 43,000 years old. Other hard rocks mined or collected for axes included the greenstone of the Langdale axe industry based in the English Lake District. The mines at Grimes Graves and Krzemionki are especially famous, and like most other flint mines, are Neolithic in origin (c. Flint mines have been found in chalk areas where seams of the stone were followed underground by shafts and galleries. These were used to make early tools and weapons for example, high quality flint found in northern France, southern England and Poland was used to create flint tools. Since the beginning of civilization, people have used stone, ceramics and, later, metals found close to the Earth's surface. Moreover, unregulated or poorly regulated mining, especially in developing economies, frequently contributes to local human rights violations and resource conflicts. Work safety has long been a concern as well, and where enforced modern practices have significantly improved safety in mines. Hence, most of the world's nations have passed regulations to decrease the impact however, the outsized role of mining in generating business for often rural, remote or economically depressed communities means that governments sometimes fail to fully enforce regulation. Mining operations usually create a negative environmental impact, both during the mining activity and after the mine has closed. Modern mining processes involve prospecting for ore bodies, analysis of the profit potential of a proposed mine, extraction of the desired materials, and final reclamation of the land after the mine is closed. Mining in a wider sense includes extraction of any non-renewable resource such as petroleum, natural gas, or even water. Mining is required to obtain most materials that cannot be grown through agricultural processes, or feasibly created artificially in a laboratory or factory. Ores recovered by mining include metals, coal, oil shale, gemstones, limestone, chalk, dimension stone, rock salt, potash, gravel, and clay. Exploitation of these deposits for raw material is based on the economic viability of investing in the equipment, labor, and energy required to extract, refine and transport the materials found at the mine to manufacturers who can use the material. Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the Earth, usually from an ore body, lode, vein, seam, reef, or placer deposit.

Platinum social sciences grade 6