There is direct evidence that the Romans mechanised at least part of the extraction processes. They used water power from water wheels for grinding grains and sawing timber or stone, for example. A set of sixteen such overshot wheels is still visible at Barbegal near Arles and dates from the 1st century AD or possibly earlier, the water being supplied by the main aqueduct to Arles. It is likely that the mills supplied flour for Arles and other towns locally. Multiple grain mills also existed on the Janiculum hill in Rome.
Ausonius attests the use of a water mill for sawing stone in his poem Mosella from the 4th century AD. They could easily have adapted the technology to crush ore using tilt hammers, and just such is mentioned by Pliny the Elder in his Naturalis Historia dating to about 75 AD, and there is evidence for the method from Dolaucothi in South Wales. The Roman gold mines developed from c. 75 AD. The methods survived into the medieval period, as described and illustrated by Georgius Agricola in his De re metallica.
They also used reverse overshot water-wheels for draining mines, the parts being prefabricated and numbered for ease of assembly. Multiple set of such wheels have been found in Spain at the Rio Tinto copper mines and a fragment of a wheel at Dolaucothi. An incomplete wheel from Spain is now on public show in the British Museum.