Jay-yi Nah is an underwater archaeological space courting to the Early Traditional Maya period (250-600 CE) that centered on salt manufacturing for local employ or even local manufacturing for down-the-line trading.
Incurved wall bowls from the sea-floor glance at Jay-yi Nah in Belize. Inform credit score: H. McKillop.
The food arrangement of the Maya civilization centered totally on corn, beans, squash and various salt-dreadful plant meals, and particular person diets had been supplemented with manufactured salt.
Fieldwork on the Paynes Creek Salt Works in southern Belize indicates that coastal Maya households produced surplus salt in the Traditional period (250-900 CE), setting up devoted salt kitchens and separate residences.
“Loads of the salt works along the flit of Belize date to the Gradual Traditional period (650-800 CE), corresponding with a time of inhabitants snort in the southern Maya lowlands,” mentioned Louisiana Train University’s Professor Heather McKillop and Dr. Elizabeth Sills from the University of Texas.
“These consist of salt works at Northern River Lagoon, Wits Cah Ak’al, Marco Gonzalez and various sites on Ambergris Cay, Moho Cay, Colson Level, Placencia Lagoon and the Paynes Creek Salt Works.”
“Tidy-scale salt manufacturing seems to acquire ended by the Terminal Traditional period (800-900 CE), and perchance earlier at Marco Gonzalez, when extra special of the southern Maya lowlands develop into as soon as abandoned and there is a marked enlarge in circum-peninsular exchange, including exotics wares goal like Snappily-witted Orange, Plumbate, Yucatan slate and various pottery evident from Marco Gonzalez and Wild Cane Cay in snort.”
In 2023, the archaeologists found out a brand aloof salt works space, called Jay-yi Nah, which curiously lacked the broken pots so total at various salt works, whereas a number of pottery sherds had been found out.
“These resembled sherds from the nearby island space of Wild Cane Cay, which I had previously excavated,” Professor McKillop mentioned.
“So, I instructed to Dr. Sills that we glance Jay-yi Nah again for posts and sea floor artifacts.”
The artifacts the researchers found out contrasted with these from various nearby underwater sites, which had imported pottery, obsidian, and high quality chert, or flint.
“Within the foundation, this develop into as soon as perplexing. But a radiocarbon date on a post we’d found out at Jay-yi Na equipped an Early Traditional date, 250-600 CE, and solved the mystery,” Professor McKillop mentioned.
Jay-yi Nah turned out to be extra special older than the numerous underwater sites.
Via their findings, the scientists learned Jay-yi Nah had developed as a neighborhood enterprise, with out the outside exchange connections that developed later for the period of the Gradual Traditional period, when the inland Maya inhabitants reached its peak with a high request for salt — a total biological necessity in transient provide in the inland cities.
Jay-yi Nah had started as a little salt-making space, with ties to the nearby community on Wild Cane Cay that also made salt for the period of the Early Traditional period.
Abundant fish bones preserved in anaerobic deposits at Wild Cane Cay imply some salt develop into as soon as made there for salting fish for later consumption or exchange.
“Distinctive big bowls with incurved walls and necked jars with grooved lips had been associated to an Early Traditional pole and thatch salt kitchen, however the vessel supports and exchange items attribute of later salt work sites had been absent,” the authors mentioned.
“These artifactual differences enable for a consideration of technological changes in coastal salt manufacturing and the widening of exchange networks as inland request for salt elevated in the Gradual Traditional period.”
“No subject the challenges of archaeology in shallow underwater sites, be taught at Jay-yi Nah underscores the price of excavating in mangrove peat below the sea floor the put preserved picket architecture precisely dates and offers context to pale practices of commodity manufacturing — in this case, salt.”
The findings appear in the journal Antiquity.
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Heather McKillop & E. Cory Sills. Earliest Former Maya salt manufacturing in southern Belize: excavations at Jay-yi Nah. Antiquity, published November 6, 2024; doi: 10.15184/aqy.2024.186
