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They think there was a lot of mining going on in England in 750?

Huh, interesting. The paper calls out activity around Derbyshire, and cites a book "Mining, metallurgy and minting in the Middle Ages". The book itself appears to focus on a later period.

Poking around, it looks like there is evidence for lead mining in the Derbyshire region possibly including Roman times, but there isn't any great data floating around.

The other source the authors suggested (Merovingian mining and coin production in France at Melle) seems to have far stronger evidence for large scale production in that time period.

I have no trouble believing there was extensive lead mining in England in Roman times, but it's harder to believe it was happening in 750. I can't think of anything the Anglo-Saxons would have been using lead for, and it's hard to imagine there was much of an export trade. I would also be surprised if the Franks were making silver coins on anything like the scale the Romans did.

On the other hand, the lead's there in the data; it must have come from somewhere; so that part of the graph seems to me the most intriguingly mysterious bit.

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