United by Process, Divided by Everything Else: Caddo and Settler Saltmaking at the Holman Springs Site, Sevier County, Arkansas

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Paper / Report Submission (General Sessions)", at the 2024 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

The Red River of the Southeast is one area where shallow subterranean salt deposits mix with groundwater to produce briny marshes. Successive communities residing in the area rendered those brines into salt. How they did so, what they used the salt for, and how it affected their relationships with neighbors differed drastically based on time and culture. This paper expands on excavations at the Holman Springs site, in western Arkansas, where traces of Caddo salt production dating to 1300-1600 AD overlap with a Settler salt furnace operated between the 1830s and 1870s. The juxtaposition of these two communities’ differing approaches to salt production invites comparison in how salt and its manufacture ramified through all aspects of their culture, community, and region. The comparison also offers commentary on contemporary concerns focused on resource extraction, exploitation of natural resources, and the impacts of employing different types of fuel in production processes.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2024   •
• Paper / Report Submission (General Sessions)

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow