La sal como dinamizador económico en la prehistoria reciente del nordeste peninsular. La Vall Salina de Cardona.

This paper deals with the role of rock salt from Cardona (Catalonia) during the Middle Neolithic, mainly in the circular flows of good exchange.  It attempts a balance of our results of the first European exploitation of rock salt generated in the Muntanya de sal of Cardona, the only rock salt mountain in Western Europe. Our intention is not to focus exclusively on the Vall Salina and the study of the mining tools, but also to think about the role of salt in the circulation of different materials and goods specific to the Catalonian Middle Neolithic. For this purpose, we will confront at the same time the hypothesis about the origin of the rocks used as mining tools used for extraction and modelling rock salt and the information about the circulation of other regional prestige goods (variscite pearls, shell bracelets) and other exogenous raw materials (flint from the Vaucluse, Alpine rocks). Crossing the information has made it possible to evaluate the socio-economic role of salt in intercommunitary trade and to propose privileged axes of circulation. In conclusion, salt, a useful value, was a basic element in the economic development for these communities of the Solsonia. Only in this way, it is possible to understand the presence of elements of worthy values and exogenous materials (hundreds of kilometres of distance) in the grave goods of the regional burial chamber. This earliest rock salt exploitation stimulated the intercommunity exchanges at regional as supraregional scale.