Salt in Prehistoric Europe Prehistoric in Salt
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Harding Salt in Prehistoric Europe Prehistoric in Salt Salt in Prehistoric Europe 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 Salt in Prehistoric Europe 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 Anthony Harding 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. Anthony Harding is Professor of Archaeology at the University of Exeter, UK, a Fellow of the British Academy, and a former President of the European Association of Archaeologists. His research centres on the European Bronze Age, where he has carried out excavations in several countries and published a number of books and many articles. ISBNSidestone 978-90-8890-201-7 Press Sidestone ISBN: 978-90-8890-201-7 9 789088 902017 This is an Open Access publication. Visit our website for more OA publication, to read any of our books for free online, or to buy them in print or PDF. www.sidestone.com Check out some of our latest publications: Salt in Prehistoric Europe Sidestone Press Salt in Prehistoric Europe Anthony Harding © 2013 A.F. Harding Published by Sidestone Press, Leiden www.sidestone.com ISBN 978-90-8890-201-7 Photograph cover: front: Salt Crystals, photograph by Paul Looyen, Dreamstime.com back: Hallstattersee, Austria, photograph by RoCe, Dreamstime.com Lay-out & cover design: Sidestone Press Contents 1 Introduction 9 The uses of salt 11 The action of salt in the body 14 History of research 16 Conclusion 20 2 Salt: what it is, where and why it appears 21 What is salt? 21 Origin and occurrence of salt deposits 22 Conclusion 26 3 Production techniques through the ages 27 The techniques 28 Ethnography 35 Written sources: classical antiquity, medieval and early modern 38 Conclusion 41 4 From earliest times to the Chalcolithic 43 Introduction 43 Salt up to the end of the Chalcolithic: conclusions 51 5 The Bronze Age 53 Briquetage 54 Mines and quarries 61 The trough technique 63 The Bronze Age – summary 66 6 The Iron Age: Austrian mines, French briquetage, English Red Hills and other sites 67 Lagoons and salt-pans: Greece and Rome 68 Mining and quarrying 71 Salt-boiling using briquetage 73 The Iron Age: summary 85 7 The development of salt working through European prehistory 87 The salt zones of Europe 89 8 Salt as an economic resource 91 The scale of production 91 The movement of salt 92 Salt and metal 97 Salt as an economic resource: conclusion 110 9 Salt and society 111 Chaînes opératoires 112 Cross-craft interaction 116 Commoditization/Commodification 119 Technological innovation 119 Salt and society 121 Gender aspects 124 Provisioning production sites 126 Towards a new narrative of salt production 127 10 Conclusions and prospects 129 Salt today 129 The future of salt from the past 133 Appendix 135 References 141 Preface This book seeks to set out the current state of play in the study of prehistoric salt- working in Europe, with some consideration of other parts of the world and other periods where these seem to provide information of interest or value to the task in hand. I have tried to avoid simply repeating information that has been frequently presented in the past, though inevitably some of this appears in order to provide the context in which the current situation may be viewed. The book stems from a long-standing interest in salt on my part, even though my substantial publications on the topic are of relatively recent date and come principally from the fieldwork which Valeriu Cavruc (Valerii Kavruk) and I have conducted in Transylvania over the last 10 years. Since it has sometimes been alleged that I am a newcomer to the field, it is worth pointing out that conference papers in the 1990s considered the matter, as did a section in my book European SocietiesintheBronzeAge (Harding 1998; 2000, 249-254; 2001); these publications appeared just as the current interest in salt was gathering speed, but were written without input from the meetings that were taking place around that time (for instance, they were written several years earlier than a salt session at the EAA Annual Meeting in Esslingen, Germany, in 2001, which I attended). Now that salt archaeology is an area of study in its own right, many more people are working on the topic. Their writings have inevitably contributed much to what follows in this book. I would particularly like to acknowledge the helpful insights of Olivier Weller (Paris), who knows more about archaeological salt than anyone else and who generously provided offprints on request, Elaine Morris (Southampton), the leader of salt studies in Britain, who has helped me with information on many occasions, and my colleague Valeriu Cavruc (Sfîntu Gheorghe), who has given me unstinting support and intellectual stimulus over many years. For the provision of books and articles over the years, discussions, and invitations to present my material at meetings, I would like to thank Hans Reschreiter and Kerstin Kowarik (Vienna), Alfons Figuls (Cardona), Vassil Nikolov (Sofia), the late lamented Dan Monah (Iaşi), Thomas Saile (Regensburg), Germán Delibes de Castro and Elisa Guerra Doce (Valladolid), Janine Fries-Knoblach (Erlangen), Laurent Olivier (Paris), Cyril Marcigny (Longues-sur-Mer), Gert Goldenberg (Innsbruck), Josip Kobal’ (Uzhgorod), Thomas Stöllner (Bochum), Wojciech Blajer (Kraków), Milan Salaš (Brno), Rowan Flad (Harvard), Janice Kinory (Oxford), Jonathan Terán (Zaragoza), Antonio Morgado (Granada), Horia Ciugudean (Alba Iulia), Marc Talon (Croix-Moligneaux), Ian Brown (Tuscaloosa) and David Cranstone (Gateshead). preface 7 Special thanks are due to Peter van der Broeke (Nijmegen), who read the entire manuscript in draft, saving me from several errors and making many helpful suggestions, to Eszter Bánffy (Budapest) for helpful comments on Chapter 4, and to Chris Smart (Exeter), who efficiently conducted the GIS study in Chapter 8, collected information on aspects with which I was unfamiliar, and brought together the illustrations, redrawing several of them. The book could not have been brought to fruition without their help. Lastly, the efficient help from Karsten Wentink at Sidestone Press is gratefully acknowledged. Exeter, UK August 2013 8 salt in prehistoric europe Chapter1 Introduction “Onemayseeklessaftergold,butthereisnoonewhodoesnotwishtofindsalt; deservedlyso,sinceeverykindoffoodowesitssavourtoit”(Cassiodorus, Variae Epistolae 12.24) (written AD 537/ 538) 1 The archaeological study of salt in Europe has in recent years seen something of an explosion in interest. In part this is due to a number of remarkable discoveries, in several countries of Europe, and in part to a renewed interest in the commodity as an important element in ancient economies. Especially in the years since 1999 there have been a sizeable number of conferences, seminars and colloquia, resulting in collected volumes, monographs and other publications that have transformed the academic landscape where the study of salt in archaeology is concerned. Many of these publications, or the articles in them, are referenced in this book. A rather small group of scholars have led the way in recent years in the study of salt in prehistory, most notably Olivier Weller (Paris). Their writings, and the meetings and publications they have inspired, have led the way for many others to carry on research into one of the most fundamental, yet intangible, materials encountered in human life. This is not to forget the work of a considerable number of scholars who have made important contributions to the topic, and whose work is considered here. In many ways this interest is not surprising, since salt is without question important to human societies for a number of reasons, in the present as in the past (see below). Archaeologically, however, salt is difficult to study, since sodium chloride is highly soluble and does not survive when exposed to the elements, or the percolation of water (only one find of actual salt solids appears to be known, that from Kopaka near Zakro in Crete, though pieces of rock salt were discovered in excavation at Pobiednik Wielki near Kraków in southern Poland: below, Chapter 5). This means that salt can – so far – only be studied through the production sites where it was once extracted or created – mines, outcrops, springs, or streams – along with the equipment used for the purpose. Luckily the bacteriocidal action of salt means that organic remains are often preserved in ancient salt production sites, notably wood, but in some cases – such as Hallstatt – leather and textiles. This has in some cases enabled a detailed study of fixed constructions, portable objects, and thus potential techniques for salt production.