Neolithic salt production in Europe centers around sites such as Solnitsata in today's Bulgaria, and Lunca (Poiana Slatinei), Romania. Lunca is the first known salt production site dating c. 6000 BCE. Solnitsata, a citadel town, also grows rich from salt trade.
READ: Cult of the Fire God - Bronze Age Quest Adventure
While Solnitsata is the earliest known town in history, settled c. 7000 BCE, Lunca yields the first known salt production dating to 6000 BCE. Both centers are crucial to economic, community and personal welfare.
READ: Cult of the Fire God - Bronze Age Quest Adventure
As Solnitsata dominates the Balkans, Lunca fills needs of people like the Cucuteni-Trypillia culture, the largest Neolithic settlement group in history. With up to three thousand buildings, each settlement houses 20,000 - 46,000 people.
Other Neolithic groups of the area include the Bug-Dniester culture (c. 6300-5500 BCE); the Körös culture in regions of today's Hungary; the Dnieper-Donets (c. 5000-4200 BCE); as well as the Azov, Surskaya and Priazovskaya.
READ: Reiker For Hire - Victorian Detective Murder Mysteries
Along Dniester River from Odesa on the Black Sea, the Cucuteni-Trypillia culture at first extracts salt from earth-born brine springs. As the population grows so does demand. Salt is essential for the large settlements.
Cucuteni-Trypillia sites with thousands of citizens need c. 36,000 - 100,000 kg of salt per year. Extracting salt from the Black Sea might occur to curious minds, but saline level is low due to abundant freshwater feeds such as Dnipro (Dnieper), Dniester and Danube Rivers.
READ: Lora Ley Fantasy Fiction Series - Germanic Mythology Adventures
The salinity of the Black Sea's surface waters is 17-18 parts per thousand, compared to ocean levels (33-37 ppt). The Mediterranean has 38% ppt. There, early people find saline plants and olives in abundance. Salt production happens later, by Phoenicians or Romans.
The Black Sea has only one narrow outlet, at the Bosporus Strait, which connects through the Sea of Marmara (marble, after the rock found there), to the Mediterranean. Thus waters of the Black Sea doesn't mix and heavier brine sinks to create an anoxic layer.
READ: Cult of the Fire God - Bronze Age Quest Adventure
The Black Sea has a layer of fresh to brackish between 100-200 m (328-656 ft), with higher saline in the oxygen-deprived water below. For Neolithic people, salt production from the Black Sea in infeasible.
As consumption of fruit and grains predominates, humans eat less meat and fish. As a result the people have lower salt intake and need to supplement. Cows also need extra salt for prolific milk production. Bovines and other livestock are still given salt blocks today.
READ: Reiker For Hire - Victorian Detective Murder Mysteries
Wild animals visit salt licks or natural salt pans, evaporated salt pools or lakes. Ancient hunters wait by these places for prey. A salt lick, also called a mineral lick, provides animals with essential sodium, phosphorus, magnesium, calcium, zinc and other minerals.
A mineral lick can also act as a treatment for toxins some plants release on being eaten. Tropical fruit bats visit salt licks when pregnant to make up the salt lacking in their primary food, figs. Other animals using licks include deer, mountain goats, porcupines and sheep.
READ: Lora Ley Fantasy Fiction Series - Germanic Mythology Adventures
Evidence of late Neolithic salt production dates to 3766 - 3647 BCE in Yorkshire, Britain. The site centers on production of salt from the water of the North Sea, brought from a location 4 km (2.5 mi) away. Procedure is the same as that in the earlier Black Sea region.
Salt springs form when ground water percolates down through salt-bearing rocks. Water dissolves the salt. Hydrostatic pressure or gravity of ground water at a higher elevation pushes salt water through fissures and cracks to emerge as salt springs at a lower level.
These are the major sources of salt. Early people produce salt on a household, community or mass production scale. The salty water is boiled in vessels of briquetage, a rough or coarse type of pottery.
Due to demand, some Neolithic potters specialize in briquetage pots. The pottery wheel doesn't yet exist and vessels are hand-shaped. The thick walls of the pots have a smooth interior often lined with kaolin clay.
READ: Lora Ley Fantasy Fiction Series - Germanic Mythology Adventures
The outer vessel is rough and may be coated with clay and straw to help the vessel retain heat. For industrial manufacture the pots are placed close together in a fire pit. The boiled salt water evaporates to a thick brine, which is transferred to a smaller briquetage vessel.
The water evaporates and salt crystalizes inside the vessel. The briquetage vessel is broken away to reveal a hard crumbly cake of salt. An archaeological find of briquetage sherds points to salt production in the past.