Les ateliers de minéralurgie des minerais de fer d'altération XVIIe -XIXe siècle. Empreintes dans les paysages et approche spatiale.

International audienceThe landscape is a main source of interpretation in mining archaeology. Activities related to mining and ore dressing have left a lot of marks in the landscape. They reveal the evidence of structures no longer visible; that is the case of dry rivers which cannot explain the large volumes of sediment treated in iron ore dressing workshops. Field investigation and underground exploration have been carried out over some three decades and have led to the development of geomorphological and survey methods for analysing mining and ore dressing landscapes. This methodology has been used to study alterite iron ore dressing activities and remains in the Jura Mountains and its margins: the Saône Valley. Geomorphological knowledge is necessary to compare and to identify the differences between natural and anthropic features. In many cases, ore dressing landscapes reveal morphological structures of ablation and accumulation; their volume, amplitude and profiles can vary within a territory and according to the whole process. The study of these landmarks and waste deposits involves different approaches; all of them refer to a morphogenetic process whose sedimentary content is the key element to interpret such evidences