Salta displays a great archaeological wealth. Much of its sites still remain unstudied. The most known and often visited are:

SANTA ROSA DE TASTIL RUINS
Located at a distance of 100 kilometres from Salta, by the Quebrada del Toro Gorge and 200 metres away from the town of the same name. It is a dependency of the Museo Antropológico de Salta Anthropological Museum as is its small site museum. The University de la Plata did a study of them in 1967.

Some reconstructed sectors were found, also marked roads, market squares, dwellings and burial sites. In the surrounding mountains can be seen the outlines of ancient farm plots and areas covered with rock carvings . The studies carried out there did not unravel the mystery as to why this pre-Hispanic city was abandoned by its citizens, leaving behind all kind of objects.

QUILMES RUINS
At 245 kilometres from Salta. Although belonging to the Province of Tucumán, these ruins are approached from Cafayate, across routes 68 and 40.

The first studies done in this place go back to the late 19th century, but the most recent ones as well as the reconstruction, that took more than two years, were carried out in 1978 through an agreement between the Provincia de Tucumán Provincial Government and the Facultad de Filosofía y Letras de la Universidad de Buenos Aires University Faculty of Philosophy and Literature.

In this ancient town almost 4000 people used to live. It was built above the Cerro Alto del Rey Mountain. Also taking advantage of the unevenness of the ground, two fortresses were built on two hillcrests. Some remnants of dwellings can be seen on the hillsides and towards the South, one can see a big dam that was employed for watering the fields and terraced agricultural fields.

The sad fate of its inhabitants is well known. They originally moved here coming from elsewhere. They established themselves here upon finding an abandoned city, and lived here until the arrival of the Spaniards. When the Calchaquí rebellion headed by the false Inca Pedro Bohorquez took place, the natives where banned, went into exile on foot and under extreme conditions, which took a dreadful toll among its members, to the locality of Quilmes in Buenos Aires, as it is known today.

CHURCAL RUINS
It is located at 1800 m.a.s.l. in the Alto Valle Calchaquí High Valley, between the localities of Seclantás and Molinos, some 180 kilometres from Salta, through the Cuesta del Obispo and eight kilometres from Molinos.

The ruins, dating back to between 1100 to 1300 A.D., are located 100 metres above the Calchaquï River.

The Universidad Nacional de la Plata National University carried out the investigations of this site. Some 500 enclosures were classified, among them children urns, a kind of artificial mounds that served for two apparent purposes, as garbage deposit with tombs underneath.

The remains found there show that the occupation of the ancient dwellers was mainly pottery (Santa María and Churcal horizons), along with the making of cloth, woodworking, basketry, and rope twining.

INCAHUASI RUINS
Of what once was "the House of the Inca" or Incahuasi, there only remain vestiges. In the year 1890 Burmeister made some studies on it. A small sized room was all the archaeological remains left of proven Inca origin. There are also other rectangular rooms, sidewalls, niches and scattered remnants of a road net.

Among them, stands out the "Sillón del Inca" (Seat of the Inca), a stone seat leaning against the wall of one of the rooms and a niche with a trapezoidal shape, in which canter stone was used and then plastered with mud. The once existing roof was made with beams of wood brought from other places, and covered by mud, straw and stone slabs.
After crossing the Incamayo river the "Mirador" or Viewing Point appears, magically preserved and strategically placed. Made of mud. With a floor of slab stones and where only a person bowing down can enter.

To reach these Ruins you have to leave Salta by the Ruta Nacional No 51 National Route up to the locality of Ingeniero Maury, 61 kilometres away. From there you make an ascent by a steep pathway to the Abra del Gólgota, climbing some 1000 metres, to descend afterwards to the mentioned site by a path that runs through mountains that contain a great variety of fossils.

It is also possible to follow the Inca trail coming from Pascha.

OTHER RUINS OR ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITES:
La Paya- In the Calchaquí Valley, nearby the locality of Cachí.

Las Pailas- Near to Cachí, the major part of the archaeological pieces from this site is in the museum of the locality.

Fuerte de Tacuil- On the access road to Molinos.

Graneros de la Poma: Indigenous storage tower or silos on the mountain.

Titiconte: Nearby Iruya. Semi underground constructions, as an insulation against the harsh climate.

RUPESTRIAN ART
The Salta territory has plenty examples of prehistoric art expressed through rock carvings and cave paintings:

The Rock Carvings are rocks carved using the technique of stippling dots and scraping. There are scenes depicting hunting, animals, geometric and anthropomorphic figures. There are also the strange "standing stones", some of them engraved (like the ones in the Tafí del Valle, in the Menhir Park) in high zones, usually among "Abras" (high passes through the mountains dividing two zones). Many sites with these rock carvings can be found in the proximities of Santa Rosa del Tastil, San Bernardo de las Zorras, Cafayate and Alto Valle Calchaquí.

Rupestrian Paintings, accomplished by using local materials, both mineral or organic, are generally found on sandstone overhangs. The predominating colours are white, ochre, red and black depicting men, shields, llamas and rhea ostriches. The paintings can be seen in:

• Las Juntas, 140 kilometres from Salta, by the Nacional Route No 68 to La Viña, entering then the locality of Guachipas and La Cuesta del Cebilar and La Cuesta del Lajar.
• Ablomé, 70 kilometres by the Nacional Route No 68 to Coronel Moldes, entering the Dique de Cabra Corral Dam, and from there on a catamaran to reach the place.
• Valle Encantado or Enchanted valley (with the help of a guide), Brealitos, La Poma.

DINOSAUR FOOTPRINTS
The last dinosaurs alive dwelled in the northern territories of the land that today is called Argentina. And they left a message behind for us. Their footprints actually "speak" to the scholars. In the year of 1990, the international expert on dinosaur footprints, Doctor Ricardo Alonso, participated in a photographic expedition with the National Geographic Society aiming to register images of the footprints of those prehistoric animals that are found in the Valle del Tronco Valley, Salta.

Alonso asserts that 65 million years ago, at the end of the Mesozoic era, during the Cretaceous Period, before the rising of the Andes, in the place that is actually occupied by the Cuesta del Obispo, some 160 kilometres from Salta, a wonderful sub tropical forest landscape once existed by the shores of the sea.

The dinosaurs used to come from the continental lands of the West, in the direction of what today is the Puna. The ones that left their footprints in the beach sands were the last dinosaurs ever to roam Earth. Suddenly, they had became victims of the great extinction that changed the world forever.

Those prints were covered and filled with limestone sand carried there by a hurricane like storm. With time, they turned into fossils. After a period of some 50 or 60 million years, around the time when the Andes arose, the former beach was transformed into a wall that the wind later eroded. Water and wind uncovered the footprints, until they could be easily seen today.

The young geologist depicts the environment in which these dinosaurs existed. Everything indicates the presence of a mild, warm and damp climate, with clear water seas whose tides are perfectly registered up to this days on the beach sands. A wealthy and rich biotope, among beaches of white calcareous sands, very much alike the shores of the present day Bahamas.

These footprints were discovered by Mario Raskovsky, geologist of the Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica (The National Atomic Energy Committee), who joined an expedition searching for uranium in the Valley of the Tonco. Now the valley is called "Quebrada de la Escalera" or Ladder Ravine, due to the fact that ladders of steel rope and wooden steps had to be assembled to allow access for the miners. It is so abrupt and vertical that many of those attempting to climb it end up suffering aerophobia attacks, vertigo and other similar symptoms.

This footprints tell us that they were made by bipeds that didn't drag their tails but instead walked well upright in a vertical posture. This fact confirms the notion that they were warm-blooded animals, well advanced into the evolutionary agenda.

Lately, the affluence of visitors has shown a constantly growing rate. Indeed, there are several tour agencies that organize excursions to this locations, even though accessing to these places seldom becomes an easy task.