Technical advancement has for millennia been intimately linked to the mining and production of metals, and this book provides a comprehensive history of the early development of extractive metallurgy. Drawing on the latest archaeological discoveries and laboratory investigations, Paul Craddock brings together for the first time the evidence for the very inception of mining and smelting, showing that early techniques were often different from what was previously believed. The book presents much new material throughout and provides new interpretations and insights into many aspects of early metal production right through to the blast furnaces and high-temperature distillation units that heralded the Industrial Revolution. Integrating documentary evidence with metallurgical study and new information from archaeological excavations in Europe, India, North America, and China, this book gives a full and approachable synthesis of mining and metal production everywhere.