Contrasting letters to the editor have both criticised the need to mine any more, and stressed the importance of digging out as much as possible.
When I excavate in Thailand, the last word I want to hear is tong, meaning gold. Finding any makes me nervous about looters descending on the site to ransack it.
So, when and where did the human lust for gold begin? The answer is 7000 years ago in Bulgaria.
Varna lies on the coast of the Black Sea in a strategic location for maritime trade. I once seized an opportunity to visit the site and the Varna Museum, to see for myself the "Golden Man", one of nearly 300 people buried in the prehistoric cemetery that my son Tom has radiocarbon dated. Three of the men interred there were accompanied by outstanding wealth, one of them particularly standing out.
A sceptre, held in his right hand, was surely a signal of exalted status, leading to many describing him as a prehistoric prince. Gold offerings were placed all over the body. He wore bangles on each arm, and a disc on his forehead. A particularly large disc was probably worn on his belt. There are more discs all round the body, and gold bulls that have been seen as symbols of virility and power.
The people of Varna were traders, and we find tools in the graves cast from copper sourced to mines in Central Bulgaria. Spondylus shells came from the Mediterranean, and beads were fashioned from carnelian and agate.
Trade is a two-way process and it is highly likely that the wealth of Varna was based on salt from the local mines.
This man has been described as the first known elite individual in the human past, and his exalted status is perhaps best incapsulated by the fact that his penis was encased in a golden sheath.
Although finding gold in my own excavations has required the employment of 24-hour guards, it still causes a frisson of excitement with the first exposure of unblemished yellow.
Once my colleague uncovered a golden earring and while she was enjoying a tea break I sneaked into the excavation square and uncovered a matching pair. And, again, when we were uncovering the skeleton of a woman who died 2000 years ago, we found that she wore a wonderful necklace of gold and agate beads.
