The Extraction of Salt from Water by Caddo Indians

Water for trade in Southwest Arkansas

Salt has always been a desired ingredient through the ages and the Caddo Indians were fortunate enough to live in the conditions to make it.

Join us as Michelle Megan Rathgaber, with University of Arkansas System Arkansas Archeological Survey, helps us peek into the lives of the Caddo Indians and their use of the water in marshes in southern Arkansas.

Salt has always been a desired ingredient through the ages. Most Indian tribes and nations could not make salt themselves and had to obtain it by trade. The Caddo were fortunate to live near brine seeps that were strong enough to make salt by open burning. Salt making made the Caddo important partners with the French in the colonial period and the Caddoan pottery, often intricately and beautifully decorated, can be viewed at the University of Arkansas' - Arkansas Archeological Survey building.

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