Archaeological and chemical evidence for early salt production in China.
Salt production and trade is thought to be critical to the development of all states and emergent empires. Until now, however, scientific evidence of early salt production has rarely been presented, and no studies of early Chinese salt production have provided unequivocal proof. Here, we report x-ray fluorescence, x-ray diffraction, and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analyses that demonstrate that salt was the primary product during the first millennium before Christ (B.C.) at Zhongba in Central China. This work provides an early example of salt production discovered in China and presents a methodology for evaluating salt production sites in other regions.
Flad
Rowan
R
Department of Anthropology, Peabody Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA. rflad@fas.harvard.edu
Zhu
Jiping
J
Wang
Changsui
C
Chen
Pochan
P
von Falkenhausen
Lothar
L
Sun
Zhibin
Z
Li
Shuicheng
S