Maya Salt Production and Trade Open Access

This book is a major contribution to Maya studies. While scholars often have asserted that the exchange of salt was an important factor in the development of ancient Maya civilization, until now such claims have remained unsubstantiated. Andrews, in this revised version of his doctoral dissertation, rectifies this serious gap in archaeological knowledge with his comprehensive examination of salt production and trade in the Maya Lowlands and Highlands. Using his own observations of numerous salt production locations as the basis of his discussions, the author describes production in modern and historic times and uses these data, in combination with archaeological and geographic information, to infer the nature and magnitude of pre-Hispanic production. Given the physiological needs of the inhabitants of the tropical lowland environment and the population estimates for the Southern Maya Lowlands, and particularly that part which William Rathje has labeled the “core area,” Andrews argues that this area, which lacks large-scale salt resources, must have imported huge quantities of salt during Classic times (a.d. 300-800). He further contends that the salt trade played significant roles in the rise of Maya civilization in Late Formative times (300 b.c.-a.d. 300) and its demise in the ninth century. In effect, he supports Rathje’s basic hypothesis that the growth of organizational complexity in the core area was a result of the need to cope with the demands of long-distance trade, although he argues that particular parts of the hypothesis must be revised.