For many years, the origin of the Guanches in the Canary Islands remained a mystery. It was mystically suggested that they could be descendants of the legendary Atlanteans.
Who are the Guanches
The subtropical climate of the Canary Islands, the southernmost region of Spain, attracts crowds of holidaymakers. The Canary Islands were visited by 15 million tourists last year. In the 5th century BC. e. Roman writer Pliny the Elder wrote about deserted islands with ruins of large structures. However, not all seven islands were empty. Archaeological finds indicate that Phoenicians and Punyans arrived here from about the middle of the first millennium BC. The Carthaginians periodically mastered the Canary Islands. And only after the 4th century AD. e. the Guanches, who knew nothing about shipbuilding and navigation, were completely isolated.
Long before the arrival of the first Spanish settlers in the 1470s, another civilization flourished in the Canary Islands. The islanders called themselves Guanches, Guachinec or Guachinet, which means "Tenerife man". Written evidence of the Guanches, dated 1150, reached the King of Sicily Roger II in the book "Entertainment of the Exhausted Wandering in the Regions" written by the Arab geographer Muhammad al-Idrisi.
The language, despite some similarities with the Berber-Libyan languages, also differed from them. It was even more surprising that the Guanches could talk to each other only by moving their lips or emitting a whistle, which they understood and answered from long distances.
The mystery of the origin of the Guanches
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The origin of the Guanches has long been a subject of debate between archaeologists and historians. According to some assumptions, they were descendants of the Celts or Vikings. The most daring have suggested that they may be the descendants of the mythical inhabitants of the sunken Atlantis. There have been hypotheses about the similarity of the aborigines with the Cro-Magnons.
The question of how the Guanches reached the archipelago remains open. According to one theory, the people of Tenerife crossed the ocean in small boats and landed on the islands of Lanzarote and Fuerteventura. The number of potential settlers also remains a subject of scientific controversy, but research suggests that 14 pairs would be enough to settle the archipelago.
Guanche culture
As archaeological finds show, the Guanches were organized into a tribal society under the leadership of chiefs. They were engaged in agriculture, hunting and gathering, their diet included:
- milk;
- goat meat;
- pork;
- fruits.
Basically, they threw goat skins on their underwear, woven from cattail leaves. They lived in natural caves or simple stone houses with a low ceiling.
One of the most notable of these structures is the Risco Caído. It is a settlement of 21 caves that have been carved into volcanic tuff about a hundred meters above the Barraco Hondo River on the island of Gran Canaria. It is believed that this place was used as a storage for grain, a temple and an astronomical observatory. Sun and moonlight penetrates the openings of the caves, which illuminate the symbolic drawings on the walls. In 2019, Risco Caído became the first UNESCO World Heritage Site in the Canary Islands.