Underwater excavations in one of the largest and oldest known Mayan salt kitchens have revealed that workers teleworked. Excavation carried out at the Ta'ab Nuk Na site (which was active between 600 and 800 AD), found a residential building that shows that a family lived and worked in the same place.
Ta'ab Nuk Na is the largest of the 110 submerged Mayan sites in Paynes Creek National Park (southern Belize). Its main function was the extraction of salt, which was crucial for the growth of the interior cities of the Empire, since it was a scarce product inland.
Archaeologists from Louisiana State University and the Texas A
"We had analyzed salt kitchens at other Paynes Creek sites, but wondered if the workers lived on site, which has implications for understanding the organization of salt production at the height of Classic Maya civilization," adds McKillop.
However, most excavations at other sites focused only on salt production. Exploration at Ta'ab Nuk Na was more systematic. Underwater archaeologists marked the locations of key finds at the bottom of the lagoon, leaving the water patterned with a forest of more than 600 flags.
"We found hundreds of wooden posts defining the walls of Classic Maya thatched-roof buildings," said Professor Cory Sills of the University of Texas at Texas.
Locations were digitally mapped out and key elements excavated. Putting the results together, the footprint of several buildings emerged from the data. Radiocarbon dating revealed that these archaeological evidences were the result of several phases of construction.
Initially, Ta'ab Nuk Na consisted of only a handful of residential buildings in the 6th century AD, with no signs of salt production. This changed around 650 AD. when the three salt kitchens and a large residential structure were built on the site.
"Mapping individual artifacts on the seafloor allowed us to see their distribution in relation to the 10-post, thatched-roof wooden buildings and reconstruct the activities in the different buildings," says Professor McKillop. Domestic activities included fishing, food preparation and cooking, carpentry, and cotton spinning.
Evidence of these actions shows that the large structure was a residential building, confirming that salt production was carried out by people working from their own homes. The household would first have produced salt for itself before exchanging the surplus with other communities.
"The surplus was transported inland to markets where it was traded for other commodities, such as pottery and stone tools like those that have turned up at the salt workers' residence," Professor Sills admitted. Estimates indicate that Ta'ab Nuk Na was able to extract more than a ton of salt per week.
Together, this salt pan and the others on Paynes Creek would have had enough production to meet the needs of up to 24,000 people. Crucially, the fact that workers lived on site and worked in indoor kitchens meant that salt could be produced year-round.
In this way the demand of the interior Mayan cities, which were growing at their greatest rate during this period, could be met. Production at Ta'ab Nuk Na stopped after 800 AD. and the large site of Ek Way Nal, in another part of the lagoon, became the largest salt kitchen in Paynes Creek.
At Ek Way Nal, a location that the same team of researchers had previously studied, it shows that there were also residential structures on the site. “Ancient Mayan salt workers worked from home for centuries, with salt kitchens attached to residential spaces,” the study authors conclude.
