Hostname: page-component-5d84bcc8dc-zkzgt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-09-13T19:25:55.260Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Early Neolithic salt production at Street House, Loftus, north-east England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 March 2021

Stephen J. Sherlock
Stephen J. Sherlock*
Affiliation:
Independent scholar
*
(✉ stephen.sherlock@ntlworld.com)
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Evidence for prehistoric salt production in Britain has been confined to the Bronze and Iron Ages. This article presents new evidence for Early Neolithic (3800–3700 BC) salt-working at Street House, Loftus, in north-east England. This deeply stratified coastal site has yielded the remains of a brine-storage pit and a saltern with at least three associated hearths, together with an assemblage of flint and stone tools, ceramic vessel sherds and briquetage. A process of production is suggested and parallels are drawn from contemporaneous European and later British sites. This discovery has the potential to influence future Neolithic studies considering subsistence, early technologies and exchange mechanisms.

Keywords

BritainNorth YorkshireNeolithicsalt productionbriquetage

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 95 , Issue 381 , June 2021 , pp. 648 - 669
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Antiquity Publications Ltd.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

AoC Archaeology Group. 2018–2019. Report on environmental samples from Street House, structure 18. Report prepared for Stephen Sherlock Services, Edinburgh.Google Scholar
Ard, V. & Weller, O.. 2012. Les vases de ‘type Champ-Durand’: témoins d'une exploitation du sel au néolithique récent dans le Marais poitevin, in Joussaume, R. (ed.) L'enceinte néolithique de Champ-Durand à Nieul-sur-l'Autise (Vendée): 309–33. Chauvigny: Association des publications Chauvinoises.Google Scholar
Barford, P. 2016. Fired clay, in Evans, C., Appleby, G. & Lucy, S. (ed.) Lives in land: Mucking excavations by Margaret and Tom Jones, 1965–78: 196–203. Oxford: Oxbow.Google Scholar
Bell, M. 1990. Brean Down excavations 1983–1987 (English Heritage Archaeological Report 15). London: English Heritage.Google Scholar
British Geological Survey. 2016. P916107.jpg. Available at: http://earthwise.bgs.ac.uk/index.php?title=File:P916107.jpg&filetimestamp=20160412172237& (accessed 18 February 2021).Google Scholar
Bronk Ramsey, C. 2009. Bayesian analysis of radiocarbon dates. Radiocarbon 51: 337–60. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0033822200033865CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bronk Ramsey, C. 2017. Methods for summarising radiocarbon datasets. Radiocarbon 59: 1809–33. https://doi.org/10.1017/RDC.2017.108CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, N. 2016. Prehistoric Ceramics Research Group research framework: agenda and strategy (Prehistoric Ceramics Research Group Occasional Publication 7). Salisbury: Wessex Archaeology.Google Scholar
Chowne, P., Cleal, R.M.J. & Fitzpatrick, A.P.. 2001. Excavations at Billingborough, Lincolnshire, 1975–78, a Bronze Age–Iron Age settlement and salt-working site (East Anglian Archaeology Report 94). Salisbury: Trust for Wessex Archaeology.Google Scholar
Cramp, L.J.E., Jones, J., Sheridan, A., Smyth, J., Whelton, H., Mulville, J., Sharples, N. & Evershed, R.P.. 2014. Immediate replacement of fishing with dairying by the earliest farmers of the North-east Atlantic archipelagos. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 281. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2013.2372Google Scholar
Griffiths, S. 2011. Chronological modelling of the Mesolithic–Neolithic transition in the Midlands and north of England. Unpublished PhD dissertation, Cardiff University.Google Scholar
Guerra Doce, E., Moras, F.J.A., Castro, G.D., Lazaro, A.L.P. & Recio, J.V.. 2015. Bell Beaker pottery as a symbolic marker of property rights: the case of the salt production centre in Molino Sanchón II, Zamora, Spain, in Martínez, M.P.P. & Salanova, L. (ed.) The Bell Beaker transition in Europe: mobility and local evolution during the third millennium BC: 169–81. Oxford: Oxbow.Google Scholar
Harding, A. 2017. Salt in prehistoric Europe. Leiden: Sidestone.Google Scholar
Harding, J. 2013. Cult, religion and pilgrimage: archaeological investigations at the Neolithic and Bronze Age monument complex of Thornborough, North Yorkshire (Council for British Archaeology Research Report 174). York: Council for British Archaeology.Google Scholar
Kinory, J. 2012. Salt production, distribution and use in the British Iron Age (British Archaeological Report British Series 559). Oxford: Archaeopress. https://doi.org/10.30861/9781407309729CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lane, T. & Morris, E.L. (ed.). 2001. A millennium of salt making: prehistoric and Romano-British salt production in the Fenland (Lincolnshire Archaeology and Heritage Report Series 4). Sleaford: Heritage Trust of Lincolnshire.Google Scholar
Lawton, J. 2019. Geophysical surveys at Street House 2005–14, in Sherlock, S.J. (ed.) A Neolithic to late Roman landscape on the north-east Yorkshire coast: excavations at Street House, Loftus, 2004–17 (Tees Archaeology Monograph Series 7): 11–15. Hartlepool: Tees Archaeology.Google Scholar
Lim, M., Petley, D.N., Rosser, N.J., Allison, R.J., Long, A.J. & Pybus, D.. 2005. Combined digital photogrammetry and time-of-flight laser scanning for monitoring cliff evolution. Photogrammetric Record 20(110). http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1477-9730.2005.00315.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Manby, T.G., King, A. & Vyner, B.E.. 2003. The Neolithic and Bronze Ages: a time of early agriculture, in Manby, T.G., Moorhouse, S. & Ottaway, P. (ed.) The archaeology of Yorkshire: an assessment at the beginning of the 21st century (Yorkshire Archaeological Society Occasional Paper 3): 35–116. Leeds: Yorkshire Archaeological Society.Google Scholar
Marks, Y. 2021. Looking for the evidence of salt at Street House using XRF technology (Teesside Archaeology Society Bulletin 25). Stockton-on-Tees: Teesside Archaeology Society.Google Scholar
Morris, E.L. 2001a. Briquetage, in Lane, T. & Morris, E.L. (ed.) A millennium of salt making: prehistoric and Romano-British salt production in the Fenland (Lincolnshire Archaeology and Heritage Report Series 4): 33–62. Sleaford: Heritage Trust of Lincolnshire.Google Scholar
Morris, E.L. 2001b. Salt production and distribution, in Lane, T. & Morris, E.L. (ed.) A millennium of salt making: prehistoric and Romano-British salt production in the Fenland (Lincolnshire Archaeology and Heritage Report Series 4): 389–404. Sleaford: Heritage Trust of Lincolnshire.Google Scholar
Morris, E.L. 2007. Making magic: later prehistoric and early Roman salt production in the Lincolnshire Fenland, in Haselgrove, C. & Moore, T. (ed.) The later Iron Age in Britain and beyond: 430–43. Oxford: Oxbow.Google Scholar
Mortimer, J.R. 1905. Forty years' researches in British and Saxon burial mounds of Yorkshire, including Romano-British discoveries. London: A. Brown.Google Scholar
Pautreau, J.-P. 1974. L'Habitat peu-richardien de La Sauzaie commune de Soubise (Charente-Maritime) (Circonscription des Antiquités Préhistoriques de Poitou-Charentes 185). Poitiers: Imprimerie du C.E.A.N.Google Scholar
Proctor, J. 2012. The Needles Eye enclosure, Berwick on Tweed. Archaeologia Aeliana, 5th Series, 41: 19–122.Google Scholar
Reimer, P.J. et al. 2013. IntCal13 and Marine13 radiocarbon age calibration curves 1–50 000 years cal BP. Radiocarbon 55: 1869–87. https://doi.org/10.2458/azu_js_rc.55.16947CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sheridan, J.A. 2007. From Picardie to Pickering and Pencraig Hill? New information on the ‘Carinated Bowl Neolithic’ in northern Britain, in Whittle, A. & Cummings, V. (ed.) Going over: the Mesolithic–Neolithic transition in North-west Europe (Proceedings of the British Academy 144): 441–92. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.5871/bacad/9780197264140.003.0023Google Scholar
Sheridan, J.A. 2021. A view from north of the border, in Hey, G. & Frodsham, P. (ed.) New light on the Neolithic of northern England: 177–88. Oxford: Oxbow.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sherlock, R.L. 1921. Rock salt and brine. London: HMSO.Google Scholar
Sherlock, S.J. 2012a. Late prehistoric settlement in the Tees Valley and north-east England (Tees Archaeology Monograph Series 5). Hartlepool: Tees Archaeology.Google Scholar
Sherlock, S.J. 2012b. A royal Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Street House, Loftus, north-east Yorkshire (Tees Archaeology Monograph Series 6). Hartlepool: Tees Archaeology.Google Scholar
Sherlock, S.J. 2019. A Neolithic to late Roman landscape on the north-east Yorkshire coast: excavations at Street House, Loftus, 2004–17 (Tees Archaeology Monograph Series 7). Hartlepool: Tees Archaeology.Google Scholar
Sherlock, S.J. & Vyner, B.E.. 2013. Iron Age salt working on the Yorkshire coast at Street House, Loftus, Cleveland. Yorkshire Archaeological Journal 85: 46–67. https://doi.org/10.1179/0084427613Z.00000000024CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spratt, D.A. (ed.). 1993. Prehistoric and Roman archaeology of north-east Yorkshire (British Archaeological Report British Series 104). London: Council for British Archaeology.Google Scholar
Tencariu, F.-A., Alexianu, M., Cotiugă, V., Vasilache, V. & Sandu, I.. 2015. Briquetage and salt cakes: an experimental approach of a prehistoric technique. Journal of Archaeological Science 59: 118–31. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2015.04.016CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vyner, B.E. 1984. The excavation of a Neolithic cairn at Street House, Loftus, Cleveland. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 50: 151–95. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0079497X00007519CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vyner, B.E. 1988. The Street House Wossit: the excavation of a later Neolithic and Early Bronze Age palisaded ritual monument at Street House, Loftus, Cleveland. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 54: 173–202. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0079497X00005818CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weller, O. 2015. First salt making in Europe: an overview from Neolithic times. Documenta Praehistorica 42: 185–96. https://doi.org/10.4312/dp.42.12CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weller, O. & Dumitroaia, G.. 2005. The earliest salt production in the world: an early Neolithic exploitation in Poiana Slatinei-Lunca, Romania. Antiquity Project Gallery 79: 1–4. Available at: http://www.antiquity.ac.uk/projgall/weller306/ (accessed 18 February 2021).Google Scholar