Archeological materials from the most ancient open‐pit gold mine in Europe have been investigated using mineral magnetic methods as part of the multidisciplinary research of the site. The aim of the study was to employ rock‐magnetic characteristics (magnetic susceptibility, anhysteretic remanent magnetization, isothermal remanent magnetization and various magnetic grain‐size dependent ratios) for classification of a collection of 177 samples, taken from Late Bronze age waste heaps, pristine rocks, natural soils and soils from cultural layers. Factor analysis and k‐means cluster analysis revealed that four clusters explain the best mineral magnetic data. Results from the thermomagnetic analysis and thermal demagnetization of composite isothermal remanence proved that the main magnetic minerals in the collection are magnetite/maghemite, hematite, and goethite. Based on the magnetic properties, samples from clusters 1 and 3 were identified as influenced by fire—archeological structures and waste heaps with the use of fire setting, respectively. Samples belonging to cluster 2 were dominated by goethite and hematite, thus identified as rock residues. Materials grouped in cluster 4 showed magnetic characteristics typical of natural soils and were thus related to this class of materials. The obtained clustering of the samples agreed well with their archeological assignment. Spatial distribution of cluster members across the site provides valuable environmental information for the location of the mining activities, their lateral spread and the technology used. It was concluded that magnetic mineral analysis is a precise, sensitive, and a highly effective method for characterization and classification of materials from ancient mining.

中文翻译：

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利用岩石磁性技术对青铜时代金矿开采场所Ada ​​Tepe（保加利亚）的考古材料进行识别和分类

作为该站点多学科研究的一部分，已经使用矿物磁方法对欧洲最古老的露天金矿的考古材料进行了研究。这项研究的目的是利用岩石磁特征（磁化率，磁滞剩磁，等温剩磁和各种磁粒度相关比率）对从晚期青铜时代废料堆，原始收集的177个样品进行分类。岩石，天然土壤和文化层的土壤。因子分析和k-均值聚类分析表明，四个聚类解释了最佳的矿物磁数据。复合材料等温剩磁的热磁分析和热退磁的结果证明，该集合中的主要磁性矿物是磁铁矿/磁赤铁矿，赤铁矿，和针铁矿。根据磁特性，使用火种设置，分别识别出集群1和集群3的样本受火灾，考古结构和废物堆的影响。属于簇2的样品以针铁矿和赤铁矿为主，因此被确定为岩石残留物。聚类4中的材料表现出天然土壤特有的磁特性，因此与此类材料有关。所获得的样本聚类与他们的考古学分配非常吻合。集群成员在整个站点上的空间分布为采矿活动的位置，横向扩散和所使用的技术提供了宝贵的环境信息。结论是磁性矿物分析是一种精确，灵敏，