Il Sale. Record archeologico, produzione e manipolazione

There is some evi- dence to support the hypothesis that from the Neolithic onwards human groups would have simply collected marine salt naturally formed through solar evaporation. However, the identification in some later Bronze Age coastal sites of éléments de briquetage, usually connected to the salt production by artificial evaporation, puts this issue in a different light, by adding for the first time direct archaeological evidence. In this paper, the coast- al “industrial” sites from the central Tyrrhenian Italy, which are characterized by accumulations of sherds of reddish-brown coarse ware jars, are discussed, together with the evidence coming from the Caput Adriae. Most of them date to the Final Bronze Age-Early Iron Age. Some specialised features (pits, furnaces) are classified also according to the ateliers de briquetage evidence. Their presence, together with the coarse ware jars both point to specialised activities where the container and the contents (salt? salted fish?) are strictly intertwined. Some of these sites could have provided food to the inner early-states.