history

Sites for salt production have been unearthed in the area of Wonup Workers' District in Onchon County, Nampho Municipality.

The research team from the Archaeology Institute of the Academy of Social Sciences intensified a survey and excavation of the historical sites.

In the course of this, the team found brine-storing facilities and salt ovens, the salt-producing site found for the first time in the DPRK, in the workers' district area. They date back to the Bronze Age and the New Stone Age (5 000-5 500 years ago).

The brine-storage facilities are domed in favour of storing salt water and divided into two cultural layers (layers containing the archaeological sites and relics).

A stratum of hard mud used for storing salt water and the remains of containers dating back to the Bronze Age were found in the upper cultural layer and a stratum of thick clay mixed with wood ash used for storing salt water and the remains of containers from the New Stone Age in the lower cultural layer.

The salt ovens, too, consist of two cultural layers.

An oven with a flue for concentrating salt water and the remains of containers from the Bronze Age were discovered in the upper cultural layer, and an oven without flue and the remains of containers from the New Stone Age in the lower cultural layer.

The research team applied various analysis methods in cooperation with the relevant units to make a comparative analysis of the ingredients and salinity of soil in and around the brine-storage facility. In that course, they came to a conclusion that the salinity of the soil at the salt-storage facilities is much higher than that of the soil around it and therefore they are the sites where salt was produced.

They also verified, through the scientific measurements of the production dates of the containers, that the earthenware pieces unearthed from the upper cultural layer were made in the Bronze Age (5 000 years ago) and those in the lower cultural layer in the New Stone Age (5 500 years ago).

The Archaeology Society of the DPRK examined the analysis data on the sites, earthenware and soil and confirmed that the site in the upper cultural layer is the facility dating back to the Bronze Age and that in the lower cultural layer is the facility dating back to the New Stone Age, where the Korean ancestors produced salt by boiling sea water down.

And it estimated that the historical sites are of national treasure value showing the superiority of the resourceful and civilized Korean people as they constitute clear proof that the Taedong River basin centring on Pyongyang is one of the cradles of human civilization.