Page 355 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol IV

1656 berkshire encyclopedia of world history

across long distances from the time farming populations warm and dry coastlines. Mediterranean and Indian
first began to feel the craving for supplies of mineral salt. Ocean coasts were especially well suited to salt produc-
In Southwest Asia, where wheat and barley farming tion, and we can assume that as the technique became
originated, the closest and richest source of mineral salt familiar, adequate sources of salt for needy farmers were
was the Dead Sea shore, and it is probably not an acci- in fact created by deliberate action. After all, it only
dent that Jericho, situated on the Jordan river, and con- needed patience to produce mineral salt dependably
trolling the best route to the Dead Sea, is the earliest once picks and shovels had shaped a suitably shallow
fortified site archaeologists have discovered. Dues in pond and closed off its inlet.
kind collected from travelers passing through on their
way to gather salt from the shore of the Dead Sea may Salt as a Trading
well have enriched Jericho’s rulers and done much to sus- Commodity
tain the stronghold they built about 8000 BCE. Around the shores of the Mediterranean, the practice of
Nothing comparably suggestive about long-distance evaporating sea salt probably established itself with the
salt trade is known about other early centers of agricul- spread of agriculture itself. Later, when farming also
ture. But millet farmers in China and Africa, root and rice established itself further north in Europe, where climate
farmers in Southeast Asia, corn, squash and bean farm- was wetter and evaporation slower, it was too cool and
ers in Mexico, potato and quinoa farmers in Peru all it rained too much to allow reliable salt production
needed mineral salt to supplement their diets as much or through evaporation. Instead, first peddlers then ships
more than the wheat and barley farmers of Southwest began to carry Mediterranean salt to the northlands.
Asia did.That is because the Southwest Asian cereal farm- Records of the salt trade begin to appear in medieval
ers acquired a more diversified array of domesticated ani- times. By then northerners depended for most of their
mals than others, and so had more meat as well as better salt on imports from Mediterranean saltpans.
transport at their disposal. We know far less about salt production along the
When what we call civilization brought states and coasts of the Indian and Pacific oceans. Still it is very
cities and radical differentiation among occupational likely that the practice of sea water evaporation spread
specialists into being, beginning about 3500 BCE, the salt very widely there within climatic limits, and supplied
trade surely grew, if only because larger human popula- inland farmers with the salt they needed either through
tions continued to depend on the crops village farmers peddling, or by moving it cross-country through systems
produced. But for a long time there is little or no written of reciprocal gift-giving among neighboring farmers. In
or archaeological evidence of salt transport and trade that the Americas an organized salt trade existed among
anyone can point to. Mayans and Aztecs and salt was also used in religious rit-
Yet we can surmise that where concentrations of min- uals. But nothing is known of how ordinary farmers got
eral salt were not available on land surfaces, people salt. Both Mexico and Peru had dry areas where salt
soon learned how to tap the vast stores of salt dissolved existed on the surface for the taking and evaporating sea-
in seas and oceans.That required artificial arrangements water was perhaps unnecessary. In Africa, too, inland salt
to construct shallow ponds of seawater, and then allow abounded, and Roman records show that distributing
the sun’s heat to evaporate the water until the salt became salt mined from surface deposits in the Sahara desert
too concentrated to remain dissolved. It was not hard to became an important source of wealth for West African
discover this technique, since salt is deposited naturally rulers when camel caravans began to carry it both north
on the seashore wherever natural pools evaporate in sum- and south of the Sahara after about 300 CE.
mer time.Artificial pond building and tending was there- In general, then, early farmers were able to get hold of
fore probably invented many times over along suitably the small amounts of mineral salt they needed to main-