Il sale nel Caput Adriae (Adriatico nord-orientale): dati, ipotesi, prospettive di approfondimento

The hypothesis that salt could have been a key element of the strategies adopted by human groups who settled the Karst and Istria (NE Adriatic) already in Prehistory was put forward more than ten years ago. It was based not on new feld investigations, but on a novel approach to data possibly bearing to the question. The re-evaluation was frst suggested by the results of recent geo-archaeological and archaeometric studies, which had revealed the importance of pastoralism in the Karst since the Neolithic and the contemporaneous presence in many caves of a relatively high number of exotica, as well as by ethno-historical data on traditional working methods and life conditions in the Istrian salinas. The hypothesis initially predicted that before the Bronze Age human groups could have simply collected the marine salt formed naturally through solar evaporation: a possibility supported by many examples reported in the specialist literature. Later on, the identifcation in some Bronze Age sites of éléments de briquetage, usually considered as valid traces of the production of salt by using fre, shed new light on the question, adding direct indicators to the indirect ones previously recognized and discussed. More recent discoveries and studies allow a critical revision of all these data.