The „Mining in European History-Conference“, held in November 2009 and hosted by the SFB HiMAT of the University of Innsbruck, brought together scientists from various disciplines involved with prehistoric and historic mining on an European scale for the first time. More than 150 scientists from 15 countries discussed in an integrative way the archaeological, palaeoecological, geological, geographical, historical, ethnological, linguistic and technical aspects of ancient mining activities. This conference transcript provides an overview of the recent state of the art in mining research all over Europe by uniting new findings from interdisciplinary research within one volume.