Salt production (brine boiling) and salting

What it is

Boiling of spring brine in vessels (briquetage) to obtain salt cakes, the oldest known salt exploitation; Provadia-Solnitsata (Bulgaria, c. 5500 BCE) industrialises it. Salt is necessary for a cereal-based diet and for preserving food.

Sea salt produced by solar evaporation is hard to detect archaeologically; it is probably even older.

What it led to

• Preservation of meat, fish and cheese: reserves and long-distance trade
• Wealth and fortification of salt-producing centres (Provadia, the Varna gold)
• Salt as a trade good and later as currency and tribute

Built on

• Control of firec. 1 Ma
• Control of fire

Made possible

• Salt production and walled town of Provadia-Solnitsatac. 5400-4200 BCE
• Cheese making (ceramic sieves)c. 5200 BCE
• Commodity money (barley and silver standards)c. 3400 BCE
• Fish drying and salting in Pharaonic Egyptc. 2400 BCE
• Garos and garum (fermented fish sauce)c. 500 BCE
• Narezushi (fish fermented in rice, origin of sushi)c. century II (discutido)
• Breadfruit pit fermentation (ma, masi, popoi)c. century XIII (tradición anterior)
• Barrel-salted herring (gutted at sea)c. 1380
• Biltong (cured, air-dried meat)c. siglos XVII-XIX
• Iodised salt1922
• Preservation of fish and meat

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