“Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it.”- Edmund Burke
The platinum economy is clearly linked to our modern world. Platinum production, platinum utilization, and platinum waste are topics belonging to the modern era. Though the issue remains, the problematic concern every society living on earth. What platinum can achieve for us (see its detailled utilizations), how platinum is produced (see its production conditions) and what could happen if we don't find a solution to recycle it is the matter of everyone.
Such issues are not new to the mankind. Platinum was not much exploited in the past but others precious metals such as Gold, Silver, Copper always were. So to assess the relevancy of our project and the importance of the problematic it could resolve we ask somes questions to Mr. Nicolas Minvielle, a history PhD student specialist of mining exploitation during middle age, working in the French laboratory [http://la3m.cnrs.fr/pages/accueil.php LA3M].
He has enlighten us about how metals exploitation has always been a issue a the center of the developement our societies and civilizations, triggering, sophistication, advances, and better living conditions but also wars, conflicts and environnement destrcution.
Interview
Full Dialogue
What were the impacts that precious metals had on the development of ours society ?
"This is a really opened question, since metals are at the very base of our society. Metals are used for working, clothing, building… Since the end of prehistory, metals are harvested, especially since the copper age and then metals will be more and more exploited in order to craft items, clothes, tools, currency, building items even cooking accessories…So it is the fundamental basis of all societies and as far as I know them this is very odd that a society didn’t ever use metals. This is a key element in our history. "
The value of a metal comes from his rarity. Is it still the same nowadays?
"Yes rarity confers the market value to something, the rarer it is the more expensive it is if, of course this thing as a utility for anyone, if there is someone knowing how to use it … There are special characteristic about a metal and if those characteristic give to it a potential role, if people can use it, then this metal will seek for it. Moreover if reserves are not spanned all over the world, then this metal should be precious one. That is the difference between metals called polymetallic metals (silver, copper, lead) and iron. Iron is widely spread all over the world and is harvested pretty easily as copper, silver, lead, are more concentrated at some points at the surface of the earth and their exploitation can be a bit more complicated. So they are precious because of their rarity and their utility. "
The ownership of gold was source of war. Does this phenomenon still exist?
"If a resource is rare and searched, conflict will appear for its exploitation, between exploiters themselves, to possess the richer fields, and between authorities to tax exploitation, to control it. So in precious ore fields as gold or silver there will be conflicts."
What is the platinum situation among precious metals?
"This is pretty hard to tell, since platinum has been harvested only for 300 years, so I do not what was his position in ancient societies. However platinum is often associated with gold, as a trace elements but it was not especially exploited. Platinum is clearly like metals more precious than iron as copper, silver… "
What were the minors work conditions?
"Conditions have evolved a lot through history, though very well known for antiquity in the Mediterranean region where metals were harvested by slaves or sentenced men. Of courses there were free men or citizens working in administration for Empire institutions, but the majority was a compelled workforce. Then situation became different, from the 11th century to the 16th workers were only free men, (excepted for some sentenced men), and those men had high technical mastery, and could impose their work conditions to the lords who welcomed them on their lands. So there was an inversion from the enslaved minors in the antiquity to the considered minors in middle age considered as well as any craftsman.
And then, there were several depreciation of miner consideration with the presence of some miner specialists, moving around Europe who acted upon the local workforce and that drew a rough hierarchy. And during the 19th century this has worsened with coal mines where workers had work conditions different from the rest of population… Condition had lowered back not as much as in the antiquity slavery of course but it is the period of birth of proletariat, as you can read in book like Germinal..."
How the notion of mining resources availability has been apprehended throughout history?
"This is a conception between two ideas, the availability of fields and the prospecting work that allow discovering fields that were not observable before. So we can never know all the available resources, further studies have to be done to discover new fields."
Had proto –environmentalists trends existed in the past?
"As far as I know this is a question that was not asked in ancient societies. During middle age when the chopping of trees was restricted, it was to preserve the activities linked to the forest, to continue the woodcut industry, not in order to protect trees. So environmentalism is a recent current of thought that was not present in middle age as far as the available sources can tell."
Were there negative consequences under local populations related to mining exploitation?
"Yes absolutely, and these harmful consequences can be of two different types. Firstly the environmental ones, even since middle age even in antiquity there were pollutants released in air, in water, on the soil. And for example, some rivers are currently polluted by lead pollution from middle age. Theses consequences are not felt by populations, even if pollution is present. Even while digging in miner cemetery, miner skeletons have been found to be show a very pollution… Secondly the economic consequence can appear. When a mining exploitation is led in a region this promote job offers but when the mine industry withdraw a whole sector disappear. This recall the notion of boomtown where a mine can provide jobs and make a whole town live for a period but when fields became exhausted, the industry left the region and all workers can be in a very bad situation, and have to move away to seek others not depleted mined fields…
"Yes absolutely, and these harmful consequences can be of two different types. Firstly the environmental ones, even since middle age even in antiquity there were pollutants released in air, in water, on the soil. And for example, some rivers are currently polluted by lead pollution from middle age. Theses consequences are not felt by populations, even if pollution is present. Even while digging in miner cemetery, miner skeletons have been found to be show a very pollution… Secondly the economic consequence can appear. When a mining exploitation is led in a region this promote job offers but when the mine industry withdraw a whole sector disappear. This recall the notion of boomtown where a mine can provide jobs and make a whole town live for a period but when fields became exhausted, the industry left the region and all workers can be in a very bad situation, and have to move away to seek others not depleted mined fields…"
