This video explains the ancient lakeside civilization of Hallstatt, Austria, which is a town that developed around a large salt mine in prehistoric times.  The region was very influential throughout Europe, and the town is an important archeological site.

Following are points from the video:

— Salt was a very valuable commodity in the ancient world since it was the only known method for preserving food until refrigeration was invented.  Salt was very scarce in central Europe at that time, and thus is was a profitable trading commodity.

— Large deposits of salt exist in the Hallstatt region of the Alps in Austria, and people have been mining it from that location since 5,000 BC.  They initially used deer antlers and stone axes to do the mining.  “Hallstatt” means “the place of salt” in German.

— The town of Hallstatt has been declared a UNSECO World Heritage site in 1997.

— The Hallstatt region was so successful that the early Iron Age in most of Europe is known as the “Hallstatt Culture.”  Many ancient artifacts are found in the mines, such as fur clothing, wooden tools, ropes, and food scraps.

— In the Bronze Age of 1,500 BC, a new era began in that region where bronze tools such as pick-axes were used for the mining.  Large underground mining installations were then implemented.

— Archeologists have found find perfectly preserved objects from that period in the mines, such as shoes and hats.  Also discovered is 3,500-year-old leather mining sacks that were ingeniously designed to enable efficient mining of the salt, and a sophisticated 3,350-year-old modular wooden staircase mechanism that is the oldest of its type found in Europe.

— A catastrophic landslide destroyed and buried the Bronze age mines, and new large mines were dug with a different design 400 years later.

— In the 9th century BC (the early Iron Age), the mining methods were then altered to make use of iron tools.

— A wealthy social elite lived in Hallstatt due to the existence of the mines.

— Another natural disaster in the mid-4th century BC destroyed the Iron Age mines, as had happened previously in the Bronze age.

— The Romans settled on the shores of the lake in the 1st century AD, but salt mining was not happening at that time.

— Many Roman cultural artifacts have been found in the town, such as houses, paintings, ceramics, and glass vessels.

— The first documents detailing the trading of salt in the region date to 1311 AD, in a letter by Queen Isabella of England.

— In 1734, mine workers found the mummified body of a Bronze Age salt worker, however they buried him in the cemetery.

— In the middle of the 1800’s, archeological exploration began in a prehistoric cemetery in that region, were 980 tombs were meticulously examined and documented which revealed that people were often buried with ornate objects that demonstrated trade with distant cultures due to the salt industry.

— Grave goods from 27 of the tombs were moved to the royal museum in Vienna.

— The documentary also explains other museums in Vienna such as the Natural History Museum that displays the 25 thousand year old “Venus of Willendorf.”

— Since the 1960’s, renewed studies have started in Halstadt in all types of specialties such as botany, geology, zoology, textiles, ceramics, and woodwork.