Salt
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt
All through history, the availability of salt has been pivotal to civilization. What is now thought to have been the first city in Europe is
Solnitsata, in
Bulgaria, which was a salt mine, providing the area now known as the
Balkans with salt since 5400 BC.
[6] Even the name Solnitsata means "salt works".
While people have used
canning and artificial
refrigeration to preserve food for the last hundred years or so, salt has been the best-known food preservative, especially for meat, for many thousands of years.
[7] A very ancient salt-works operation has been discovered at the Poiana Slatinei archaeological site next to a salt spring in
Lunca,
Neamț County, Romania. Evidence indicates that
Neolithic people of the
Precucuteni Culture were boiling the salt-laden spring water through the process of
briquetage to extract the salt as far back as 6050 BC.
[8] The salt extracted from this operation may have had a direct correlation to the rapid growth of this society's population soon after its initial production began.
[9] The harvest of salt from the surface of
Xiechi Lake near
Yuncheng in
Shanxi, China, dates back to at least 6000 BC, making it one of the oldest verifiable saltworks.
[10]
There is more salt in animal tissues, such as meat, blood, and milk, than in plant tissues.
[11] Nomads who subsist on their flocks and herds do not eat salt with their food, but agriculturalists, feeding mainly on cereals and vegetable matter, need to supplement their diet with salt.
[12] With the spread of civilization, salt became one of the world's main trading commodities. It was of high value to the ancient Hebrews, the Greeks, the Romans, the Byzantines, the Hittites and other peoples of antiquity. In the Middle East, salt was used to ceremonially seal an agreement, and the ancient Hebrews made a "
covenant of salt" with God and sprinkled salt on their offerings to show their trust in him.
[13][
better source needed] An ancient practice in time of war was
salting the earth: scattering salt around in a defeated city to prevent plant growth. The
Bible tells the story of King
Abimelech who was ordered by God to do this at
Shechem,
[14] and various texts claim that the
Roman general
Scipio Aemilianus Africanus ploughed over and sowed the city of
Carthage with salt after it was defeated in the
Third Punic War (146 BC).
[15]