Mesoamerica After Hours: Salt and Everyday Lives of the Maya

Join Tony and Catherine as they discuss the recent article "Household salt production by the Late Classic Maya: underwater excavations at Ta'ab Nuk Na" by Heather McKillop and E. Cory Sills, and other examples of how salt appears in the archaeological and visual records of ancient Mesoamerica. We talk about the importance of salt and what it reveals and suggests about the lives of everyday people. Sources for Further Reading: McKillop, Heather, and E. Cory Sills. "Household salt production by the Late Classic Maya: underwater excavations at Ta'ab Nuk Na." Antiquity 96, no. 389 (2022): 1232-1250. Guernsey, Julia. "Water, maize, salt, and canoes: An iconography of economics at Late Preclassic Izapa, Chiapas, Mexico." Latin American Antiquity 27, no. 3 (2016): 340-356. Williams, Eduardo. "Ancient West Mexico in the Mesoamerican Ecumene." Ancient West Mexico in the Mesoamerican Ecumene (2020): 1-466. Williams, Eduardo. "Salt production in the coastal area of Michoacan, Mexico: An ethnoarchaeological study." Ancient Mesoamerica 13, no. 2 (2002): 237-253. Williams, Eduardo. "Salt-Making in Mesoamerica: Production Sites and Tool Assemblages." Ancient Mesoamerica (2021): 1-23. Williams, Eduardo. "Salt production and trade in Ancient Mesoamerica." In Pre-Columbian Foodways, pp. 175-190. Springer, New York, NY, 2009.