Discovered in 1843, the first excavations were undertaken by the mining engineer
Alphonse Briart and two others during railway construction in 1867, with results presented to the International Prehistoric Congress held in Brussels in 1872. Intermittent excavations have been carried out up to the present day. The Mines of Spiennes cover some of
downland four miles south-east of the city of Mons. The site is dotted with millions of scraps of worked flint and numerous mining pits, that
Neolithic settlers have gradually turned into vertical mine shafts to depths of over . Underneath is an elaborate man-made network of caverns accessible via the many shafts. A seminal stage of human inventiveness, technological and cultural application and progress, the transition between
opencast and
underground mining for
flint nodules is impressively displayed and documented. Research has illustrated
Neolithic techniques for the cutting of the flint and the extraction of large slabs of flint, that weighed up to hundreds of kilos. The nodules were extracted using flint picks. The stones were then
knapped into rough-out shapes of axes, and finally polished to achieve the final state. The rough-outs were exchanged over a wide area, about , and were often polished at their destination. Polishing strengthens the final product, making the axe- or adze-head last longer. The smooth surface also aids the cutting action by lowering friction with the wood. The axes were used initially for forest clearance during the
Neolithic period, and for shaping wood for structural applications, such as timber for huts and canoes. == Conservation and access ==