Salt takes us back to the beginnings of humanity, transporting us to a variety of scenarios linked to the medicinal, the symbolic, acts of subsistence, as well as significant economic development. Salt is obtained through different means — either by evaporating brine, or through extracted minerals. It is believed that the first salt used by humans came from the sea. Historically, salt was transported by trains, by land, and by sea. This mineral, composed mostly of sodium chloride, not only enhances the flavour of food but is also essential for life — like water and air. Possessing it was a privilege, and lacking it posed a significant survival risk.

Throughout history, salt was the primary food preservative, which also served as currency, stimulated trade, caused wars, and brought distress to populations — both because access was not guaranteed, and prices and taxes were very high to consume it. Virtually all countries have imposed taxes on salt, some of which have persisted well into the 20th century.

Since ancient times, salt has been linked to the protection and cleansing of spaces, to ward off negativity, bad luck, and envy. One ritual suggests placing a container of seawater and salt under the bed to absorb the negative energies of that space.

Salt could be stored and was considered a divisible value as part of exchange networks. The first Neolithic moulds show us that salt, cut in the shape of bread, was a commodity capable of being part of long-distance exchange networks (Weller, 2004). The American anthropologist, Harlan Gilmore, describes how entire societies had decided to 'move beyond the local,' that is, migrate to obtain salt. It is a resource that has opened and expanded the boundaries of many cultures, but at the same time has resulted in entire societies addicted to this rock (Gilmore, 1955:1004).

In the Roman Empire, salt was so valuable that payments to soldiers and public officials were made in packages of salt, which were then used as a medium of exchange. This gave rise to the concept of ‘salary’, a term derived from the Latin salarium, still used today. Additionally, the road Via Salaria (the salt road) was originally a Roman route used by the Sabines to transport salt to the Tiber River during the empire.

In China, around 2670 B.C., Emperor Huangdi already used salt as a food item. His industry was highly successful, playing a key role in the development of his civilization, on economic, state and societal levels. There are at least five types of salt found in different regions of what is now China: sea salt, well salt, lake salt, earth salt, and rock salt; each with its own characteristics and uses based on where they are found.

For example, there is a traditional technique of salting that is used for preserving anchovies and other marine species that involves coating a food item with salt to extend its shelf life. This technique, still used today, facilitated exchange and transportation between the coast and the rest of the land. It was introduced by the Phoenicians in 1000 B.C., and further developed during the time of ancient Greece and the Roman Empire. It also gave rise to garum, a fermented fish sauce featuring various herbs that serves as a noble historical record of umami, acting as a strong flavour enhancer in preparations. Salt inhibits microbial growth, allowing for long-term preservation.

Salt is a seasoning with multiple household and culinary uses. The market offers varieties of textures and colour. For instance, Himalayan salt, obtained from the Khewra salt mine in Pakistan, is pink in colour and should be ground just before use. This salt is particularly rich in various minerals such as calcium, magnesium, potassium, copper, and iron; it contains a significant amount of iron oxide, which gives it its distinct pink colour.

In the Americas, during the pre-Hispanic era, salt was also a highly consumed product and used for food preservation. Additionally, it was applied as part of healing ingredients for gum treatment, toothaches, earaches, throat issues, coughs, among other ailments. It was also used to fix dyes in textiles and in the tanning of hides.

One of the largest salt flats in the world is located in South America: the Salar de Uyuni, situated in Bolivia. Here, the indistinguishable line between the sky and the earth creates a reflection — a stunning optical illusion. “We don’t have the sea... because we have the sky,” is heard around these lands. 40,000 years ago, this salt flat was part of the prehistoric Lake Minchin. According to a legend from the Quechua community, the Salar de Uyuni was formed with the spilled breast milk of the Tunupa volcano when her newborn was stolen. So, every year, her tears flood this sea of salt (what we know today as the rainy season).

The traditional extraction of salt loaves developed in the North of Argentina*. This ancient practice is connected with the caravan trade in the Northwestern region of the country, with records extending from an archaeological past (Nielsen, 2004; Yacobaccio, 2012) to the present day (Gil Montero, 2004).

*Salt cut into loaf-shaped pieces enabled populations to transport and exchange it during their journeys. The author José María Pérez explains that there is documentation highlighting the significance of collecting salt in loaves that dates back to the colonial era (Madrazo, 1982), and its production likely dates back to pre-Hispanic times.

Historically, salt flats were very attractive areas, their rich resources allowed for subsistence and with it, mysticism. The intense search for salt flats as hidden treasures is present in stories and historical chronicles throughout time. Thinking of salt flats as dominant places with the purpose of building permanent, scattered, or grouped habitats and spaces from which control of the territory could be exerted brings us closer to the anthropocentric spirit of that landscape.

Inhabited Territories: Salt Flats in the Península Valdés

On the Argentine Patagonian coast, more precisely in the centre of the Península Valdés, there are two large depressions that form the basin of two salt flats: Salinas Grandes and Chicas. The first constitutes one of the deepest depressions in the country, descending 42 metres below sea level, and the second is located at 10 metres below sea level. They both possess a pinkish colour imparted by the Artemia salina, a species of pink crustacean similar to shrimp that lives in wet salt flats. It’s a captivating landscape, almost from another planet, where the radiant white of the accumulated salt contrasts with the celestial sky and ochre cliffs of the Argentine Patagonia.

Archaeological findings of arrowheads, scrapers, and bone remain in the vicinity of the salt flats – evidence of human presence at different historical moments. Hunter-gatherer groups in the Península Valdés region date back 5000 years, and settlement sites near the salt flats indicate the use of salt to preserve their food and produce charqui* (jerky), a type of dehydrated preserved meat that is custom in the region (Otero, 2008).

Starting in 1779 and for the following thirty years, Spanish settlers exploited the salt flats. The first expedition arrived led by Juan de la Piedra*, with instructions to carry out land and river surveys of the region. Due to the quality of the existing pier and the proximity of the two salt flats to freshwater, they settled permanently in the current Playa Fracasso on the Gulf of San José. In an effort to locate the best water source in the Salina Grande, a second settlement was established in Puesto de la Fuente, located about 30 kilometres from the first one (Bianchi Villelli, 2018). Several letters to Spain highlighted the quality of the salt from Península Valdés, albeit with high transportation costs. Salt supply was crucial for use in Buenos Aires, but it was also used in salting meat for shipment to Europe (Bianchi Villelli, 2017).

In 1898, the Ferro, Piaggio y Cia group resumed development of the Salinas Grandes eight decades after the Spanish Colonies left. They built 34 kilometres of railway to install a narrow-gauge train from Puerto Pirámides to Salinas Grandes, located at the centre of the Península Valdés. Hundreds of workers were involved in its construction, which led to a growth in the population of the region. Under the name Ferrocarril Península Valdés, the region’s salt was transported to the port by carts. Antonio Munno joined to help with the logistics, incorporating a fleet of wooden boats that covered the coast, allowing the loading of salt in the port of Puerto Pirámides.

The narrow-gauge train was approved on July 14, 1900 by the Government of the Nation through Law No. 3898, granting the concession to the company. Over time, new salt collection methods were introduced. Shovels were replaced with modern machinery from the United States such as cutters and traction drags, leading to a surge in salt collection. During the first years, 12 thousand tonnes were extracted annually, meeting the needs of the fishing industry in the Port of Rawson, as well as supplying populations such as Madryn and Trelew with salt, among others. Thus, the first industry in the province of Chubut began, and a new population was formed (Ferro, 1962).

Patagonia is currently promoted as a 'territory of nature', associated with spectacular landscapes that seem to have no history or memory. However, in Península Valdés, there are other narratives that show the local history of some of the families that relocated due to the salt flat work and production. The exploitation of the salt flats in Península Valdés shaped landscapes according to the routes of the transport train. As the development took place; Italian, Basque, and German workers relocated to the region and a settlement of families began to put down roots in this territory. Barba Ruiz states that many workers were employed in this development. There were those solely dedicated to the collection of salt, others to the loading and unloading, while others focused on train maintenance, among other tasks. The main warehouse, office, and administration associated with this new salt development gradually settled in Puerto Pirámides (Barba Ruiz, 2000).

Cartography, Anthropology, and Identity in Península Valdés

Starting from an action-research* ('investigación-acción' in Spanish) that began in 2020, our main objective was to make visible the intangible and the cultural heritage of Península Valdés through the construction of scientific content with socio-historical value. We delved into the development of narratives for each site, sourcing items which offered alternative connections to the local past, showing a stark contrast to the popular context offered to tourists. Through our research, we sought to strengthen the local identity and its history archive. Slowly, that memory which came from the inhabited, the worked, the perceived, and the experienced, generation after generation, began to become visible.

From a standpoint of respect and collaboration, we recorded collective memories seeking to bring the stories of this territory back to life. We facilitated community-based participatory workshops using the social cartography methodology, which includes collecting interviews with local residents, photographic archives, documentaries, micro-radio interviews, as well as other audiovisual material.

Social cartography, conceived as a tool to highlight the memories and significant spaces of those local to a place, allowed us to access and construct old yet new narratives by creating collective maps of the town. The implementation of this type of research and the project itself started from several perspectives.

Our biggest concern was that there wasn’t a proper historical record of the locals’ own stories and that they weren’t part of the tourist and heritage narrative. In Puerto Pirámides and Península Valdés, the development of tourism and the natural heritage conservation laws resulted in the silencing of the local perspective, devaluing local and rural identities. In response to this, the sound maps we recorded sought to bring forward these forgotten discursive gaps. Sound maps are a methodological tool that seek to reflect upon memories and stories, turning audio records into sound content that highlight another history of the area. Today, thanks to this work, these records are publicly and culturally valued on a patrimonial level, and are a part of how history is told, including how context is provided to tourists.

Speaking of salt from an anthropological perspective means valuing the individuals, their dynamics, their context, and the territory. From the Salinas Grandes to the different uses of salt throughout history, through to the passage of populations linked to salt as a resource, other narratives speak to this inhabited territory. We were then able to approach local memories by bringing them together with the history of Patagonia regarding salt and the use of its territory.

One of the stories associated with a particular site in Puerto Pirámides tells of the 'caves'. Carved into the sandbar in the early decades of the 1900s, they served as storage for sea lion skin, fat, and salt. Subsequently, they had many uses: a place of refuge and camping, a meeting spot where people shared maté (traditional South American infused drink) and stories, and as temporary housing shared among families in the town.

Through interviews with various families, a multiplicity of representations of the caves throughout their history became visible. Among them, it is recounted that one cave was called 'El Garrón' (this name overlapped amongst the stories told by several families from different time periods). The name is attributed to a time when they gathered there for lunch and someone always stayed to eat as a guest. They also remembered that there were different types of doors and gates added to the cave that changed several times, up to the present day. There were also associations of danger; due to its use as a hiding place, and its mystery, recalling the childhood experiences of those interviewed. One resident recounts how her father modified the cave, creating a bench to sit on that still exists, and putting in a cement floor.

The caves were used as meeting places, lunch spots and shelters, providing shade and coolness during one’s stay at nearby Navegantes beach. They served as cafeterias and small bars. They were also utilised as informal movie venues for projections led by a captain of a whaling vessel who used it as an Interpretation Centre. The caves provided spaces to be shared between the local families as facilities during summer camping, to enjoy maté in winter, to live in and to share family stories.

Seeking out these collective memories led us to the possibility of documenting other stories — making places, objects, and routes visible.

In this context, we approached the Ferro family, who have been heavily influenced by the history of the salt flats and its neighbouring territory. This allowed us to understand and further represent ways of living: rhythms, routines, dimensions of memories, and the relevant places of interest from an anthropological lens, giving us further context into different timeframes.

At the beginning of the 20th century the Ferro family decided along with other families to venture deep into the Península — an unmanageable and inhospitable territory which had been inhabited not so long ago. As part of our research, we were able to better understand the historical construction from the Ferro family’s particular generational perspective. Social cartography, once again, permitted us to open up a diversity of dialogues shedding light on the salt of Península Valdés — taking us back to the ancient and preserved documentation that revealed complex social processes.

Laura Ferro, a fourth generation member of this rural family which has close ties to the Salinas, states that her great-grandfather Alessandro founded the Península Valdés railway to transport salt to the sea: “Salt was a seasoning to bet on living in another country, on another continent, crossing the ocean to build a home, a life, a family business...”

Laura studied psychology and is currently a photographer. Through the analysis of her family archives, she delved into those fragments of history that have helped her contextualise her personal identity and, at the same time, strengthen part of the Patagonian territorial narrative. These remnants of the past are bridges that allow her to reconstruct history from another point of view, from a more personal perspective that starts from what was inherited. She expresses, with an understanding rooted in social responsibility, that historical documents should be made public and not remain in a private sphere in order to reconstruct that collective past and share it with the community, because ultimately, family stories in such small towns are also part of that latent collective memory.

In a family that has always been led by men, her search focuses on the present role as a woman in this Patagonian story that permeates even into her dreams. “Like the archaeologist of the family archive, I was reconstructing a story, its multiple dimensions, its shadows. Making it spin, I looked at it in different ways. From a man’s life to the foundation of a family, a tribe, a town... I was suspended on the edges of recognition, I was the woman lost in the landscape...” (Laura Ferro, 2018).

Through photos and records of passengers on the salt train of Península Valdés, the history of salt is brought into this dialogue — allowing us to humanise that activity and understand part of the migrations that traversed this space, and at the same time providing more content and information in regards to that train, which is still symbolically linked to the town*.

Laura tells us that she remembers a phrase from Genesis that she keeps in mind when talking about salt: “It is said that upon an order to flee for her life and not look back, Lot’s wife did so and turned into a pillar of salt.” Lot speaks to us of a past that sometimes clings to us so much that it does not let us move forward. Therefore, he offers us a lesson: understanding that past as an important piece of one’s personal life, but at some point, you must know how to let it go and build forward, says Laura. That salty past challenges us, looking to season the present, which calls for meaning and new narratives to continue delving into its history and interpretation. 🐟