Inaugurated on July 6, 1996, and extending over 450 hectares in the hills area north of Campiglia Marittima, the Park was born to valorise and propagate an extraordinary "open-air archive" where archaeological research has reconstructed the traces of a mining activity that began in the 7th century B.C. and continued up to the present day. The old restructured mine buildings at the entrance of the Park, house reception facilities, the Mineralogical and Archaeological Museum and the Mining Museum. The first houses a homogeneous collection of mineral finds from the area of Campiglia Marittima, collected between 1995 and 1996; the archaeological collection consists of stone, ceramic and metal finds from the excavation of Rocca San Silvestro, conducted between 1984 and 1992. The Mining Museum illustrates the evolution of mining technology in the Campiglia Marittima area. Particularly impressive are the remains of a medieval village, originally known as Rocca del Palmento (for the probable presence of an oil-press), which first belonged to the Della Gherardesca counts and later (12th – 13th centuries) to the Della Rocca family. This period marked the division of the village into functional areas: above, the genteel residence with the square tower and cisterns, near the church; to the west, the area of the furnaces for transforming the copper and argentiferous lead destined to the mint of Pisa, and the area for working iron, situated outside the walls. The untimely abandonment of the town, which occurred in the 14th century, admirably preserved its ancient features. Also very interesting, finally, is the Temperino Mine with its visiting itinerary that illustrates, on site, the millenarian mining activity that went on from the Etruscan period to the 1970s.

The San Silvestro Archaeological Mines Park is part of the Val di Cornia Parks system, made up of six parks managed by Parchi Val di Cornia S.p.A.