An Overview of the Business History of the International Mining Industry

Abstract

Anatomically, modern humans have existed at least for the last 200,000 years. For 95 per cent of the history of our species, up until about 10,000 years ago, human technology was limited to what could be made out of bone, stone, wood and other easily rendered organic matter. Then, in the period archaeologists refer to as the Bronze Age, humanity began to make tools out of metals. From then on the relationship between mining, metals and technology and the contribution to economic growth have been intimately connected. While complex, the impact of this relationship in its broadest sense is fairly clear: without mining the development of technology would have been slow to non-existent, the development of a monetary economy would probably not have happened at all and the main sources of fuel (coal and later oil) and raw materials required for industrial activity would not have been obtainable. Without mining there could not have been an industrial revolution, and from that stems, in part, the basis of all economic activity which has led to the economy of the present (Diamond, 1997; Clark, 2007). Minerals and fuels extracted by mining are an essential part of the global economy — without them there would and could be no cars, computers or consumer durables; construction techniques would have been different and in many respects more limited; and buildings themselves would have been harder to light and heat.