Mover and shaker in the old Mayan society

Salt is essential to life. While ancient civilizations have gone from hunters and gatherers to agrarian societies, it is unclear how people have acquired this mineral which is a biological necessity. However, an LSU anthropologist discovered the remains of an old salt factory in Belize, which gives clues as to how the ancient Mayans, at the peak of their civilization, produced, stored and offered for sale this precious mineral. New analyzes of stone tools found on this site, called Paynes Creek Salt Works, reveal that not only did the Mayans produce salt in large quantities, but that they salted fish and meat to meet dietary and nutritional needs. produced a product that could be stored traded.

"Since we found virtually no fish bones or any other animal during our excavations at the bottom of the sea, I was surprised to see that the microscopic marks on the stone tools, that we call "wear-wear", showed that most tools were used to cut or scrape fish or meat, "said Heather McKillop, lead author of the study and professor Thomas & Lillian Landrum Alumni at the Department of Geography & Anthropology of the LSU.

McKillop worked on this study with Professor Kazuo Aoyama, co-author of the University of Ibaraki in Japan, specializing in damage from wear of stone tools. The McKillop study site is an area of ​​3 km2 surrounded by mangrove forests buried under a saltwater lagoon due to sea level rise.

"The rise in sea level has completely submerged these sites under water," she said.

The wet soil of the mangrove, or peat, is acidic and disintegrates bones, shells and microfossils made from calcium carbonate. As a result, no fish or animal bone remains were found. However, mangrove peat preserves the wood, which normally decomposes in the tropical rainforest of Central America. After finding the preserved wood in 2004, McKillop and his students mapped and searched the underwater sites with funding from the National Science Foundation and the National Geographic Society. They discovered more than 4,000 wooden posts describing a series of buildings used as salt kitchens where the brine was boiled in cauldrons over fires to produce salt. Pottery is also used in the manufacture of modern and historic salt and is called bricklaying.

The salt was cured in pots to form salt cakes and was used to salt fish and meat, which were goods that could be stored and transported to canoe markets in the area. The classical Maya from 300 to 900 AD may have traveled by boat along the coast and up the rivers to cities located about fifteen kilometers inland to trade and barter.

"These findings support the salt production and distribution model at the regional level to meet the biological needs of the traditional Maya," said McKillop.

This article will be published the week of October 8 in PNAS.

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More information:
Heather McKillop et al., "Salt and seafood in the classic Mayan economy from the study of the use and wear of stone tools" PNAS (2018). www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1803639115