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Fuelling the Ancient Maya Salt Industry

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Fuelling the Ancient Maya Salt Industry. The ancient Maya of Paynes Creek National Park in coastal southern Belize produced salt by boiling brine in ceramic vessels above fires. The process requires a constant supply of wood to maintain the fires. Charcoal recovered from Chan B’i, an Early Classic (300–600 C.E.) salt work, provides a record of fuel wood selection within a workshop context. Taxonomic identifications reveal a selection preference for species from both mangrove and broadleaf habitats. Wood from the Chrysobalanaceae family dominates the assemblage. Rhizophora mangle L., Laguncularia racemosa (L.) C.F. Gaertn., and Hieronyma sp. were also preferred wood fuel species. A total of 21 species were identified in the assemblage. Charcoal identifications are considered in terms of selection strategies within a heterogeneous landscape to better understand forest exploitation behavior for wood fuel. Selection follows principles of optimal foraging in which transport cost was a principal concern for foragers.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the Belize Institute of Archaeology for granting permits for fieldwork and exporting archaeological charcoal samples to McKillop and for their support of our research. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0513398 to McKillop, grant NSF (2008)-PFUND-95 from the Louisiana Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR), with funding from the National Science Foundation and the Louisiana Board of Regents Support Fund to McKillop, a LINK Travel grant from the Louisiana Board of Regents to McKillop, and a Sigma Xi Grant-in-Aid to Robinson. Thanks are extended to our field crew, Tanya Russ, John Spang and Jackie Young and family. Additional thanks go to Mike Wiemann, Holley Moyes, Laura Kosakowsky, David Chicoine, Shayna Hernandez, Darrell Henry, Celina Will, and three anonymous reviewers.

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  1. Department of Geography and Anthropology, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA, 70803, USA

    Mark Robinson & Heather McKillop

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Correspondence to Mark Robinson.

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Robinson, M., McKillop, H. Fuelling the Ancient Maya Salt Industry. Econ Bot 68, 96–108 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12231-014-9263-x

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