Salt in Prehistoric Europe

✍ Scribed by Alan Harding

• Publisher: Sidestone Press
• Year: 2013
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 167
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Salt was a commodity of great importance in the ancient past, just as it is today. Its roles in promoting human health and in making food more palatable are well-known; in peasant societies it also plays a very important role in the preservation of foodstuffs and in a range of industries. Uncovering the evidence for the ancient production and use of salt has been a concern for historians over many years, but interest in the archaeology of salt has been a particular focus of research in recent times.This book charts the history of research on archaeological salt and traces the story of its production in Europe from earliest times down to the Iron Age. It presents the results of recent research, which has shown how much new evidence is now available from the different countries of Europe. The book considers new approaches to the archaeology of salt, including a GIS analysis of the oft-cited association between Bronze Age hoards and salt sources, and investigates the possibility of a new narrative of salt production in prehistoric Europe based on the role of salt in society, including issues of gender and the control of sources.The book is intended for both academics and the general reader interested in the prehistory of a fundamental but often under-appreciated commodity in the ancient past. It includes the results of the author's own research as well as an up-to-date survey of current work.About the author:Anthony Harding is Professor of Archaeology at the University of Exeter, UK, and an authority on the European Bronze Age. He is a Fellow of the British Academy and Chairman of Trustees of the journal Antiquity. From 2003-2009 he was President of the European Association of Archaeologists.

✦ Table of Contents

Introduction
The uses of salt
The action of salt in the body
History of research
Conclusion
Salt: what it is, where and why it appears
What is salt?
Origin and occurrence of salt deposits
Conclusion
Production techniques through the ages
The techniques
Ethnography
Written sources: classical antiquity, medieval and early modern
Conclusion
From earliest times to the Chalcolithic
Introduction
Salt up to the end of the Chalcolithic: conclusions
The Bronze Age
Briquetage
Mines and quarries
The trough technique
The Bronze Age – summary
The Iron Age: Austrian mines, French briquetage, English Red Hills and other sites
Lagoons and salt-pans: Greece and Rome
Mining and quarrying
Salt-boiling using briquetage
The Iron Age: summary
The development of salt working through European prehistory
The salt zones of Europe
Salt as an economic resource
The scale of production
The movement of salt
Salt and metal
Salt as an economic resource: conclusion
Salt and society
Chaînes opératoires
Cross-craft interaction
Commoditization/Commodification
Technological innovation
Salt and society
Gender aspects
Provisioning production sites
Towards a new narrative of salt production
Conclusions and prospects
Salt today
The future of salt from the past
Appendix
References