Dendrochronological Studies of Wood from Mediaeval Mines of Polymetallic Ores in Lower Silesia (Sw Poland)

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 Złoty Stok, Głuchołazy, and Zlate Hory, a polymetallic-ore mine in Marcinków as well as old mines in the Sowie Mts: the Silberloch adit, an adit on the hillside of Mała Sowa, a graphite mine, and the silver and lead mine Augusta. Altogether 69 samples were taken from timbers of coniferous tree species: Pinus sylvestris, Abies 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 Zlate Hory and Głuchołazy. In the gold mine in Złoty Stok, graphite mine in Sowie Mts and in Marcinków 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 Złoty 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.