We believe that history is linear, a series of events spanning several billion years into the past, it is time to diversify our thinking, rather than a line, imagine a network of infinite connections that have interacted over those billions of years, and together forge everything we know: our universe, our planet, and ourselves. If we think of the key points from a scientific point of view, we find ourselves with a revolutionary idea: the movement of atoms controls the movement of human beings, civilizations and galaxies.
Thousands of workers earned 25 cents a day by digging a ditch 584 kilometers long, 12 meters wide and 1.2 meters deep; the Erie Canal, inaugurated on October 26, 1825.
What do the Great Wall of China, the French Revolution and this American channel have in common? Salt, the key to a secret map of the world.... The Erie Canal was designed to transport this valuable substance.
The Erie Canal allows you to bring salt and other consumables to the Hudson River; it connects Buffalo (New York) on Lake Erie to Albany on the Hudson River, connecting the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean. This channel is known worldwide as the "salt channel". This construction left a great mark on the country, the commercial exploitations of all kinds, among those great lakes. New York City wouldn't be what it is today without the salt.
Let's look at the story. We will base the enlasis on very simple arguments to form great connections. In this way we can link global events with the needs of the animal world. All animals need salt and that's why they create routes to where it naturally exists, the so-called salt flats.
In prehistoric New York, where there were more buffalo than human beings, large herds of these animals marked their route to one of these salt flats; just where the Erie Channel emptied into the lake... This place is known as Buffalo (New York).
If we study the road map of North America, around the 1950s, we see that the roads are distributed in a strange way. This is because most of them coincide with the routes used by the animals to the salt flats that were later asphalted.
All over the world, salt leaves its mark on maps. In ancient Rome, the first paved road was built to transport salt and was called the "Salt Road" or "Salt Road".
Centuries later, the salt roads and sea routes made Venice an invaluable trading destination.
Salt is so important that where it is found, it takes its name from it, like Salzburg (the city of salt) in Austria. Or anywhere in England with the suffix "wich" (ancient cities of salt).
Three billion years ago, the rains dissolved the salt that ended up in the first oceans. These oceans evaporated leaving behind large deposits that were buried by the movements of the earth's plates. Salt deposits are basically dry prehistoric oceans.
Later, these remains of ancient oceans, emerged to the surface, but only in certain places. Rare places that would have a high impact on civilization.
5% of the area is less than 16 kilometres from a natural salt deposit. The first cities were built near water sources, but also near these salt deposits.
The salt was so scarce, that its value was equal to that of gold. The important thing about the analysis is that, from the very moment the trading network was established, anything could be transported.
Salt has influenced the current configuration of the map from the shadows and was the key ingredient in one of the most revolutionary moments in our history. Our cities, our roads; our map, everything is based on salt.
Again, going back three billion years, the world was covered by a single giant ocean. The water overflowed with elements and minerals, and up to 35 parts per thousand of salt. In this chemical bath, life mysteriously emerges.
For millions of years of the earth's history, there were only single-celled organisms living mainly in the oceans. Life evolved over millions of years, but even with the emergence of the continents, it remained in the ocean clinging to water and salt.
Some animals experimented, took their first steps on dry land, but returned to salt water to reproduce. The key to survival on the surface; bring in the salt water. The solution, 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕖𝕘𝕘.
As we began to crawl across the land, creatures such as reptiles and birds found that they could lay eggs with a resistant shell that would allow them to lock in salt water for development. Even mammals today have the uterus and amniotic sac, which could be compared to a small ocean where the fetus develops.
Cells need salt to function just like bacteria. It's a bond we all have. Tears and sweat reflect the same saline content as the primitive ocean. And the salt, it controls our brain.
Sodium helps transmit signals between neurons through a biochemical mechanism called synapses. Our thoughts are made of salt. Human brain activity is, in short, a handful of sodium and potassium in and out; our consciousness is made of salt.
Our body tells us that it needs food with hunger, and it needs water with thirst; so how do we know we need salt? What our body did was develop a desire that made us addicted. Maybe we wouldn't kill for a little salt, but we do crave the taste of salty food. We could call it our "salty sense".
200 B.C., more than one million workers worked on the construction of the world's largest defensive fortification, the Great Wall of China. When completed, it would extend for nearly 5,000 kilometers along the country's northern border. A giant company, almost like the Emperor's problem; how to finance it?
The intelligent solution, a salt tax'. The Emperor's advisors advised him to monopolize salt in order to control its great economic value. In this way, taxes made salt more expensive, and unleashed anger among addicts, but people need salt. Thus, the Emperor was able to build his wall.
𝔹𝕦𝕥 𝕓𝕖𝕨𝕒𝕣𝕖, 𝕥𝕙𝕚𝕤 𝕥𝕒𝕩 𝕔𝕒𝕟 𝕓𝕖 𝕕𝕒𝕟𝕘𝕖𝕣𝕠𝕦𝕤.
In India, 1930, Mahatma Gandhi's march against the British salt tax led to independence.
In France, 1789, an exaggerated salt tax pushed the people to the limit. This situation, together with many other discontents, was partially responsible for the beginning of the French Revolution.
A substance as simple as salt sets complex forces in motion within history. But how can it affect everything from the death of the pharaohs to the birth of civilization?
Egypt, 1213 BC. Pharaoh Ramses II (Usermaatra Setepenra - Ramses Meriamon) is dead. If the priests cannot preserve their body before it decomposes, their soul will not reach the hereafter. Salt is the solution.
The Egyptians used a type of salt known as "natron" for mummification. It is possibly the most effective preservative used in history. It may sound funny, but if you look at the recipe they followed to preserve a mummy, it's basically the same as the one we used to split the fish; we remove the viscera and stuff it with salt.
Salt is a preservative, because it contains a "super power" over water. Microscopically speaking, let's look at a molecule of salt in a tissue filled with water. When the water molecules approach the salt, they adhere to its crystals and break it up. The particles are separated and the water is removed from the fabric...
The discovery of the power of salt to preserve meats, fish, vegetables and even mummies was a great step forward in civilization. In a world without electricity, salt was humanity's refrigerator, the key to preserving food from one harvest to the next.
The word'salami', an ancient form of saying'salted meat', comes from the Latin word'salt', i.e. salt, as does'sausage' or sausage,'willow' or sauce, and'brine' or brine. As salt saved both food and people, it became the "salvation". And since it was so valuable that the Romans paid their soldiers with it; they received a "salary".
Barnett. Un siglo después de Darwin. Alianza Editorial, Madrid, 1971
P. Bergounioux. La prehistoria y sus problemas. Taurus Ediciones, Madrid, 1966.
F. Bordes. El mundo del hombre cuaternario. Guadarrama, Madrid, 1966.
Pedro Bosch Gimpera. Las razas humanas. Instituto Gallach, Barcelona, 1971.
Historia de Oriente. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, México, 1970.
Salvador Canals Frau. Prehistoria de América. Editorial Sudamericana, Buenos Aires, 1959.
El origen del hombre americano y la antropología física. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, México, 1961.
Manual de antropología física. Fondo de Cultura Económica, México, 1960.
Introducción a la prehistoria general. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, México, 1971.
Carleton Coon. Las siete cuevas. Editorial Labor, Barcelona, 1967.
Miguel Crusafont Pairó. La evolución. Editorial Católica, Madrid, 1966.
Glyn Daniel. El concepto de prehistoria. Editorial Labor, Barcelona, 1968.
*Jacquetta Havvkes. Prehistoria (Historia de la humanidad.
Von Koenigswald. Historia del hombre. Alianza Editorial, Madrid, 1971.
Los hombres prehistóricos. Omega, Barcelona, 1967.
K. Oakley. Cronología del hombre fósil. Editorial Labor, Barcelona, 1968.
Hugo Obermaier. El hombre fósil. Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales, Madrid, 1925.
Hugo Obermaier, Antonio García Bellido y Luis Pericot García. El hombre prehistórico y los orígenes de la humanidad. Revista de Occidente, Madrid, 1960
Luís Pericot García. La humanidad prehistórica. Salvat, Barcelona, 1970.
Juan Schrobínger. Prehistoria de Suramérica. Editorial Labor, 1967-1969 Barcelona,
G.G. Simpson. La vida en el pasado. Alianza Editorial,, Madrid 2002.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. La aparición del hombre. Taurus Ediciones, Madrid, 1967.
Gracia Esperanza. El origen del universo. Ediciones Naya, México 2010.
Stephen Hawking y Leonar Mlodiniow. El Gran Diseño. 2010.
Stephen Hawking. Breve Historia del Tiempo. Biblioteca Stephen Hawking. 2005.
Special thanks to the DeepL team and Google Translator for wonderful online applications that have narrowed the gap between regions through multi-language.
