Salt in prehistoric Europe / Anthony Harding.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Harding, Anthony.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Salt--Europe--History.

Salt.

Mines and mineral resources, Prehistoric.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (276 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Leiden : Sidestone Press, [2013]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

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

Contents:

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

Gender aspectsProvisioning production sites; Towards a new narrative of salt production; 10 Conclusions and prospects; Salt today; The future of salt from the past; Appendix; References

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (ebrary, viewed February 3, 2014).

ISBN:

90-8890-238-0

90-8890-201-1

90-8890-202-X

OCLC:

869588961