Ancient Maya Entrepreneurs Made Salt, a news item.

A single coastal lagoon in current-day Belize yielded 41 saltworks, along with a 13-hundred year old wood canoe paddle. These saltworks were apparently not under the control of any centralized government, as by this time centralized government had fallen to the wayside in this region of the Mayan civilization. The sites date from 600 - 900 AD, and apparently were abandoned at the time the inland cities were abandoned.

Large ceramic pots found in the region indicate that salt was obtained from seawater by boiling off the water.

Indications are that trade went the other way, too. "There are little figurine whistles and also some pottery with stamped decorations around the shoulders of jars and outsides of vessels,"

The study was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and was headed by Heather McKillop of the Department of Geography and Anthropology at Louisiana State University.