Salt
Salt
!Rock salt (halite)
History
!Ponds near [Maras, Peru, fed from a mineral spring and used for salt production since pre-Inca times](//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/50/SalinasdeMaras%2CPeru-20Sept2013.jpg/250px-SalinasdeMaras%2CPeru-20Sept2013.jpg)
History
All through history, the availability of salt has been pivotal to civilization. What is now thought to have been the first city in Europe is Solnitsata, in Bulgaria, which was a salt mine, providing the area now known as the Balkans with salt since 5400 BC. Salt was the best-known food preservative, especially for meat, for many thousands of years. A very ancient salt-works operation has been discovered at the Poiana Slatinei archaeological site next to a salt spring in Lunca, Neamț County, Romania. Evidence indicates that Neolithic people of the Precucuteni Culture were boiling the salt-laden spring water through the process of briquetage to extract salt as far back as 6050 BC. The salt extracted from this operation may have directly correlated with the rapid growth of this society's population soon after production began. The harvest of salt from the surface of Xiechi Lake near Yuncheng in Shanxi, China, dates back to at least 6000 BC, making it one of the oldest verifiable saltworks.
Reading List
Report Issue