Segers-Glocke, Christiane [Editor]; Niedersächsisches Landesamt für Denkmalpflege [Editor]; Institut für Denkmalpflege [Editor]; Balck, Friedrich [Oth.]: Arbeitshefte zur Denkmalpflege in Niedersachsen: Aspects of mining and smelting in the Upper Harz Mountains (up to the 13th/14th century) - in the early times of a developing European culture and economy (St. Katharinen: Scripta Mercaturae Verl., Heft 22.2000)

36

priority. Furthermore, to decide an appropriate course of action, relationships to
orebodies, historical records and literature references are considered in the
context of the knowledge gained from pre-project studies and the questions
arising from these.
When an area has been selected, the maps are studied in depth. Old maps with
entries of „slags“ exist already from the 17th century7 (Fig. 4).


Fig. 4:
Sketch of the Harzburg forestry district from the survey of the Communionharz by
Zacharias Ernst in 1682 - Section of a reproduction, published by the Surveyor’s Office
of Lower Saxony - State Survey - 1985, from the original in the State Archives of Lower
Saxony in Wolfenbüttel.

Forestry officers and workers are very important sources of information as are
the already mentioned local historians. All information collected is compiled into
the work plan for the future prospecting area.
A computerised geochemical information system (GIS) with over 2000 analy-
ses of sediments, which the Centre for Mining Archaeology can access provides

7 A first systematic mapping was commissioned from Henning Großkurt and Zacharias
Ernst by the welfish dukes (Herzöge) as basis for the wood industry of the
Kommunionharz (cf. Bauer 1987).