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 prod.

Description based upon print version of record.

Cover Page; Title Page; Copyright Page; Contents; Preface; 1 Introduction; The uses of salt; The action of salt in the body; History of research; Conclusion; 2 Salt: what it is, where and why it appears; What is salt?; Origin and occurrence of salt deposits; Conclusion; 3 Production techniques through the ages; The techniques; Ethnography; Written sources: classical antiquity, medieval and early modern; Conclusion; 4 From earliest times to the Chalcolithic; Introduction; Salt up to the end of the Chalcolithic: conclusions; 5 The Bronze Age; Briquetage; Mines and quarries; The trough technique

The Bronze Age -- summary6 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; 7 The development of salt working through European prehistory; The salt zones of Europe; 8 Salt as an economic resource; The scale of production; The movement of salt; Salt and metal; Salt as an economic resource: conclusion; 9 Salt and society; Chaînes opératoires; Cross-craft interaction; Commoditization/Commodification; Technological innovation; Salt and society

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