Down a Mine at Gavà, Spain

Abstract

Gavà, a village by the sea at the mouth of the Llobregat river in the northeast Iberian Peninsula, is the site of the only known Neolithic mine in Europe extracting variscite. This green mineral, similar to turquoise, is found in Neolithic tombs; its color is probably linked symbolically with the regeneration of life. At Gavà it occurs as seams of slate within layers of limestone and dolomite or sealed under clay where it outcrops. The prehistoric miners followed the seams, digging shafts leading to tunnels between 5 and 10 m long and about 2.5 m wide. These later expanded into more complex galleries with chambers, reaching depths of 30 m and more. In general the prehistoric mining cavities had been backfilled with extraction debris, including broken mining tools (stone picks and bone wedges); this saved the labor of transporting it outside the mine. Some of the cavities were reused as graves in Neolithic times (Figs. 30.1 and 30.2).