The Significance of Salt A reinterpretation of archaeological evidence from the Verde Salt Mine reveals the importance of salt in Native American life.
Steve Ayers
By Tamara Stewart
The salt deposits in the Verde Valley are a mix of minerals known as evaporites, including a variety of salts such as halite, thenardite, and glauberite. These deposits provided trade goods, among other things, for pre-Columbian cultures.
F
rom the ancient Maya, to the Caddo of southwest Arkansas, to the Southwestern tribes of the past and present, salt has been a valuable commodity to the peoples of the Americas for centuries. The need for salt became more pronounced once their diets changed from hunted and gathered foods, in which they obtained salt from eating meat, to an agriculturally-based diet high in plant foods and low in naturally occurring salt. Since ancient times Native peoples mined and otherwise acquired salt for use in their food, for trade, and for its association with rain. Salt is the source of shared mythologies and traditions surrounding the native Southwest deity Salt Woman. The Verde Valley of central Arizona was once filled with
american archaeology
a freshwater lake that flooded and receded repeatedly over millennia, leaving behind startling blue halite crystals (a mineral form of salt) and other mineral evaporites as the water receded and eventually dried up. Early valley settlers, ranchers, and the military knew of the salt deposit near Camp Verde, using it primarily for their livestock. Because of its remote location, it wasn’t until the 1920s that the Western Chemical Company began commercial mining there. During its peak, the Verde Salt Mine yielded as much as 100 tons of thenadite, also known as ‘salt cake,’ a day. In 1926, the mining, which had already uncovered an abundance of prehistoric stone tools and other artifacts, revealed the partial remains of a headless human and two
19
