For Yous Data - Salt: Mover Too Shaker Inward Ancient Maya Society

Salt is essential for life. As ancient civilizations evolved from hunters together with gatherers to agrarian societies, it has non been clear how people acquired this mineral that is a biological necessity. However, an anthropologist at LSU discovered remnants of an ancient tabular array salt works inwards Belize that furnish clues on how the ancient Maya at the peak of their civilisation to a greater extent than than 1,000 years agone produced, stored together with traded this valuable mineral. New analyses of rock tools industrial plant life at this site, called the Paynes Creek Salt Works, break that non alone were the Maya making tabular array salt inwards large quantities, only they were salting fish together with meat to run across dietary needs together with producing a commodity that could last stored together with traded.

Scientists analyzed the microscopic markings on excavated rock tools including these to discovery
new findings most the ancient Maya from to a greater extent than than 1,000 years agone [Credit: LSU]

"Since nosotros industrial plant life virtually no fish or other animate existence bones during our sea-floor survey or excavations, I was surprised that the microscopic markings on the rock tools, which nosotros telephone telephone 'use-wear,' showed that most of the tools were used to cutting or scrape fish or meat," said Heather McKillop, the study's atomic number 82 writer together with the Thomas & Lillian Landrum Alumni Professor inwards the LSU Department of Geography & Anthropology.

McKillop worked on this written report alongside co-author Professor Kazuo Aoyama from Ibaraki University inwards Nippon who is an proficient on the use-wear harm on rock tools. McKillop's written report site is a 3-square-mile expanse surrounded past times mangrove wood that had been buried beneath a saltwater lagoon due to body of body of water grade rise.

"Sea grade ascension completely submerged these sites underwater," she said.

Sharpened halt of wooden post service 305 (8 cm inwards diameter) from a edifice at Ek Way Nal (Site 60) at the Paynes Creek Salt
 Works, Belize. Use-wear analysis of chert tools indicates about were used for cutting or whittling wood. Posts
were preserved inwards mangrove peat at the submerged sites [Credit: PNAS]

The soggy mangrove soil, or peat, is acidic together with disintegrates bone, shells together with microfossils made from calcium carbonate. Therefore, no remnants of fish or animate existence bones were found. However, the mangrove peat preserves wood, which ordinarily decays inwards the rainforest of Central America. After finding the preserved wood inwards 2004, McKillop together with her students mapped together with excavated the underwater sites alongside funding from the National Science Foundation together with the National Geographic Society. They discovered to a greater extent than than 4,000 wooden posts that outline a serial of buildings used equally tabular array salt kitchens where brine was boiled inwards pots over fires to brand salt. The pottery is also used inwards modern together with historic salt-making together with is called briquetage.

The tabular array salt was hardened inwards pots to shape tabular array salt cakes together with used to tabular array salt fish together with meat, which were storable commodities that could last transported to marketplaces past times canoe inside the region. The Classic Maya from 300-900 A.D. may convey traveled past times boat along the coast together with upward rivers to cities most fifteen miles inland to merchandise together with barter.

"These discoveries substantiate the model of regional production together with distribution of tabular array salt to run across the biological needs of the Classic Maya," McKillop said.

This newspaper is published inwards Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Source: Louisiana State University [October 08, 2018]


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