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An archaeology of salt production in Fiji

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

David V. Burley ,
Karine Taché ,
Margaret Purser  and
Ratu Jone Balenaivalu
David V. Burley
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, V5A 1S6, Canada (Email: burley@sfu.ca)
Karine Taché
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Université de Montréal, C.P. 6128, Centre-ville, Montréal, QC H3C 3J7, Canada
Margaret Purser
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, Sonoma State University, 1801 East Cotati Ave, Rohnert Park, CA, 94928-3609, USA
Ratu Jone Balenaivalu
Affiliation:
Fiji Museum, P.O. Box 2023, Government Buildings, Suva, Fiji Islands
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Extract

The authors report the first exposure of prehistoric salt-working in the Pacific, one that used solar evaporation of sea water on large flanged clay dishes. This short-lived industry of the seventh century AD disappeared beneath the dunes, but its documented nineteenth- and twentieth-century successors offer it many useful analogies: the salt, now extracted by boiling brine, was supplied to inland communities upriver, where it functioned as a prime commodity for prestige and trade and an agent of social change.

Keywords

OceaniaFijiViti LevuNavatu periodsalt
Type
Research article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 85 , Issue 327 , March 2011 , pp. 187 - 200
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 2011

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