Archaeology Magazine - January/February 2022 - 53

This wooden torch is one of many millions of such torches made of fir or spruce branches found in the mine. Researchers
hypothesize that children were responsible for holding the torches to illuminate the mine chambers.
ing, and pulling were well developed. The male skeletons bear
markers of bulky triceps, chest, and back muscles, suggesting
that men were most often swinging pickaxes. Pany-Kucera also
concluded that despite their young age, 12 of the 14 children
she analyzed developed osteoarthritis in the vertebrae of their
necks and lower backs, indicating that they probably carried
loads directly on or in sacks strapped to their heads. " Hallstatt
is one of the rare places in the prehistoric world where we can
prove age- and sex-related work division, " says Reschreiter.
Workers ate their meals underground. The Iron Age mines
include what looks like a cafeteria-a large space, 300 feet
underground, containing evidence of cooking. Of course,
they also relieved themselves underground, and over the
years archaeologists have recovered more than 70 samples of
desiccated feces containing barley, spelt, and other cereals, suggesting
that the miners primarily ate whole-grain gruel. Their
carbohydrate-rich diet was supplemented by foods detected
in skimpier amounts, including fava beans, meat, and forest
fruits. DNA from a blue cheese-forming fungus and beer yeast
indicates the miners also enjoyed these fermented treats.
A
rchaeologists now understand some of how the
Hallstatt mines operated when they ran smoothly
and business boomed. Less is known about
the troubles the miners confronted and the
reasons operations were halted, sometimes
for centuries. For more than a decade,
Kowarik has led a team of archaeologists
and environmentalists assessing the
sustainability of past salt mining. In 2017,
these researchers extracted a five-foot-long
column of mud from a peat bog about a half
mile from the mines that harbored pollen
and other environmental detritus accumulated
over the past 6,000 years. Daniela Festi,
a paleoecologist at the Austrian Academy
of Sciences, tracked how the amount of
pollen, spores, and charcoal pieces fluctuated
along the column, evidence for how forests
surrounding Hallstatt changed across the
millennia. The section of the core covering
4000 to 1350 b.c. suggests that during this
interval, people felled trees for timber and to
clear room for livestock and crops, yet most
of the native spruce forest remained standing.
As mining ramped up over the next century, so
did the demand for wood. Festi documented a
A leather backpack with a wooden frame found in the
mine is of a type Bronze Age miners used to haul salt.
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precipitous decrease in the amount of pollen from hardy trees,
such as spruce and fir, and an increase in grass pollen and
spores from dung fungus, trends that suggest the dense forest
had become a patchwork of pastures, fields, and woodlands.
Festi noticed that these trends halted and reversed course
around 1200 b.c. She and Kowarik hypothesize that this represents
the natural limit on the area's lumber supplies-any more
clearing would have destabilized the ecosystem. It appears that
Hapsburg miners also hit this threshold, and sixteenth-century
documents describe the consequences. At this time, the saltmining
region faced wood shortages and a heightened risk of
landslides. To save the industry, medieval miners stopped felling
local trees and imported wood from neighboring regions.
Festi believes the Bronze Age community must have enacted
similar conservation measures. " In both cases, the environment
was not completely depleted, " she says. " It seems like
they had that kind of awareness. "
Environmental stewardship could not protect the community
from natural disasters. The region suffers from slow
earth flows-a type of landslide that creeps down a mountain
over days and weeks. " People can save themselves, probably
also save their belongings, but it's unstoppable, " says Kowarik.
" You can't do anything about the devastation of the valley. "
Radiocarbon and tree-ring dates of vegetation
in the landslide debris show that slow earth
flows buried mines and halted operations at
least three times, around 1050, 662, and 560
b.c. This could have resulted in the Hallstatt
miners' economic ruin or led them to adopt a
new lifestyle. Yet time after time, they rebuilt
the mines. Perhaps surrounding communities
that relied on Hallstatt for salt provided
food and other necessities in the landslides'
aftermath. " We have several huge catastrophes
interrupting salt production, " says Reschreiter,
" but the community is so resilient, and its
network is so stable, that it seems to be no
problem to always restart. "
And while salt brought great material wealth,
researchers do not think this was the only thing
that pulled the miners back each time. Kowarik
believes it was not so much about individual
choice, but rather about identity. Mining
requires specialized knowledge and expertise
developed over many years and passed on from
generation to generation. The people of Hallstatt
were born and died as salt miners. n
Bridget Alex is a writer and anthropologist in
Pasadena, California.
53

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Archaeology Magazine - January/February 2022

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