Revisiting Key Sedimentary Archives Yields Evidence Of A Rapid Onset Of Mining In The Mid‐13th Century At The Great Copper Mountain, Falun, Sweden

A rapid onset of large-scale mining at the Great Copper Mountain, Falun, Sweden, began around 1245 AD, contradicting earlier suggestions that mining started as early as the fifth to eighth centuries. This finding emerges from a reanalysis of sedimentary archives using geochemical methods on samples from three key sites: Tisksjöbergets myr, Tisken lake, and Runn. The study revealed that Tisksjöbergets myr's peat, containing up to 6% copper, is not useful for tracing early mining due to its cupriferous nature. Similarly, sediments from Tisken lake showed signs of infilling with reversed radiocarbon dates (19th and 16th centuries), rendering it unreliable as a historical record. Only Runn's sediment provided clear evidence of the abrupt increase in ore-related elements, such as a 34-fold rise in copper, consistent with mid-13th century mining activities.

Bindler, R., & Rydberg, J. (2015). Revisiting Key Sedimentary Archives Yields Evidence Of A Rapid Onset Of Mining In The Mid‐13th Century At The Great Copper Mountain, Falun, Sweden. Archaeometry, 58(4), 642–658. Portico. https://doi.org/10.1111/arcm.12192