Marius Alexianu – författare

Mirrors of Salt publishes the proceedings of the First International Congress on the Anthropology of Salt, which took place at the Alexandru Ioan Cuza University in Iasi (Romania). The impact of salt on the development of human communities, from the Neolithic to the present, has generated a huge number of specialized studies. However, scientific research has become so atomized that the primordial importance of the mineral has been lost, creating a need for a holistic, comprehensive vision of the dimensions generated by salt. This can only be achieved through anthropology. The anthropology of salt encompasses the entirety of human behavior, i.e. cognitive, spiritual, pragmatic, and social reactions to salt, and provides a holistic view of its role in the evolution of human communities. The anthropology of salt thus brings salt studies from an ancillary position to an autonomous discipline. The papers in this volume are organized into six sections: theory, archaeology, history, ethnography/ ethnoarchaeology/ethnohistory, linguistics, and literature. Topics include salt in Greek and Roman antiquity, as well as from Cameroon, Georgia, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, Moldova, Mongolia, Nigeria, Peru, Romania, Spain, Sudan, Syria, Ukraine, the USA and Venezuela. The congress was organized within the project The Ethnoarchaeology of the Salt Springs and Salt Mountains from the Extra-Carpathian Areas of Romania, financed by the Government of Romania (CNCS – UEFISCDI) (2011-2016). Its theoretical novelty and geographical range render Mirrors of Salt a unique study of the world’s most-used non-metallic mineral.

This book explores the relationship between salt (sodium chloride) and the development of human societies from a cross-cultural and global perspective. Although it is not possible to discuss the importance of salt to all ancient and modern societies, the geographically and temporally diverse examples highlighted here are used to examine a series of related topics critical to understanding the economic, political, social, and religious impacts of salt through space and time. These topics include, among others, the techniques used to produce salt, the individuals responsible for its production, its cultural uses and applications, its role in cross-cultural exchange, and the impact of its circumscribed distribution on settlement patterns and developing complexity.In exploring these topics, the chapter authors rely on archaeological data to craft their interpretations, however, as salt itself is largely invisible in the archaeological record, other avenues of investigation such as ethnoarchaeology, ethnohistory, and experimental archaeology are necessary to gain a more complete understanding of this mineral’s influence on the development of human cultures. Each chapter includes a summary of seminal research within a particular geographic region along with a discussion of recent or on-going projects from that area. This volume is intended for a professional audience, but university students and graduates and readers with an interest in anthropology, archaeology, ethnoarchaeology, or history will find the chapters comprehensible and informative.