Hidden in Plain Sight? Looking for the Indigenous Agricultural Fields of Gran Canaria, Agüimes and Temisas, Canary Islands, Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries

Díaz-Sierra, Ignacio

doi:10.1007/s10761-021-00609-4

Int J Histor Archaeol

2021

DOI: 10.1007/s10761-021-00609-4

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Hidden in Plain Sight? Looking for the Indigenous Agricultural Fields of Gran Canaria, Agüimes and Temisas, Canary Islands, Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries

Ignacio Díaz-Sierra

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Cited by 4 publications

References 27 publications

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Agriculture and crop dispersal in the western periphery of the Old World: the Amazigh/Berber settling of the Canary Islands (ca. 2nd–15th centuries ce)

Morales,

Speciale,

Rodríguez-Rodríguez

et al. 2023

Veget Hist Archaeobot

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The Canary Islands were settled ca. 1,800 years ago by Amazigh/Berber farming populations originating in North Africa. This historical event represents the last and westernmost expansion of the Mediterranean farming package in Antiquity, and investigating it yields information about crop dispersal along the periphery of the Mediterranean world around the turn of the first millennium ce. The current study focuses on archaeobotanical evidence recorded in a series of pre-Hispanic/Amazigh sites of the Canary Islands (ca. 2nd–15th centuries ce). It offers new, unpublished archaeobotanical findings and direct radiocarbon datings of plant remains from the different islands. The general goal is to gain a better grasp of how the first settlers of the Canary Islands adapted their farming activities to the different natural conditions of each island. The results suggest a shared crop ‘package’ throughout the islands since at least the 3rd–5th centuries ce. This set of plants was likely introduced from north-western Africa and consists of Hordeum vulgare (hulled barley), Triticum durum (durum wheat), Lens culinaris (lentil), Vicia faba (broad bean), Pisum sativum (pea), and Ficus carica (fig). The crop ‘package’ probably arrived in a single episode during the initial colonisation and was not followed by any other plants. Subsequent to the initial settling and until the arrival of the European seafarers, the islands remained isolated from each other and from the outside world, a condition that over time led to a decline in crop diversity in all of the islands except Gran Canaria.

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Agriculture and crop dispersal in the western periphery of the Old World: the Amazigh/Berber settling of the Canary Islands (ca. 2nd–15th centuries ce)

Morales,

Speciale,

Rodríguez-Rodríguez

et al. 2023

Veget Hist Archaeobot

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Animal Consumption at Hospital de San Martín (Gran Canaria): First Zooarchaeological Analysis in the Modern Era of the Canary Islands (Fifteenth-Eighteenth Centuries CE)

Brito-Mayor,

Santana,

Moreno-García

et al. 2023

Int J Histor Archaeol

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The Canary Islands were initially colonized around 200 CE by North African Berber populations who brought with them domestic plants and animals. These communities remained isolated until the arrival of Europeans in the Late Middle Ages which triggered the conquest of the archipelago. Its geostrategic location in the framework of Atlantic expansion facilitated the arrival of people, knowledge, goods, plants, and animals which served to shape the new Canarian society. This study explores the dietary practices of this period through the zooarchaeological analysis of the faunal remains recovered at the Hospital de San Martín (fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries), Las Palmas (Gran Canaria, Spain). Our results suggest that caprines were the main taxa consumed. This follows both the pre-colonial Indigenous tradition and, according to historical sources, the subsequent European period. The faunal assemblage recovered also reveals the first directly radiocarbon-dated cases in the Canary Islands of three hitherto unknown species: cattle, chicken, and rabbit. Moreover, the results evidence a progressive increase throughout the Modern Era of chicken and rabbit, and that translocating these new species to the archipelago during the European expansion led to a diversification of meat resources.

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Archaeological Research in the Canary Islands: Island Archaeology off Africa’s Atlantic Coast

Mitchell

2023

J Archaeol Res

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Island archaeology is a well-established field within the wider discipline, but African contributions to it remain scarce. The Canary Islands are unusual in the broader African context for their relatively long history of occupation (~2000 years) and the intensity with which archaeological research has been, and is, undertaken there. Much of that research, however, has focused on specifically Canarian issues, including efforts to demonstrate connections between the islands’ initial settlement and the Classical Mediterranean world. Relatively little of it has been conducted within the broader comparative framework that an island archaeology perspective provides. Additionally, much of the Canarian literature is not directly accessible to non-Hispanophones. In response, I synthesize what is currently known about the archaeology of the Canary Islands, focusing on determining when, how, and by whom they were first settled; the impacts of human settlement on their environments; inter-island variability in precolonial subsistence, social, and political trajectories; and the record left by European contact and subsequent colonization, which began in the 14th century AD. As well as pointing to further opportunities for research within the archipelago, I simultaneously map out several areas where archaeological work there could contribute to wider debates in island archaeology as a whole.

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Hidden in Plain Sight? Looking for the Indigenous Agricultural Fields of Gran Canaria, Agüimes and Temisas, Canary Islands, Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries

Cited by 4 publications

References 27 publications

Agriculture and crop dispersal in the western periphery of the Old World: the Amazigh/Berber settling of the Canary Islands (ca. 2nd–15th centuries ce)

Agriculture and crop dispersal in the western periphery of the Old World: the Amazigh/Berber settling of the Canary Islands (ca. 2nd–15th centuries ce)

Animal Consumption at Hospital de San Martín (Gran Canaria): First Zooarchaeological Analysis in the Modern Era of the Canary Islands (Fifteenth-Eighteenth Centuries CE)

Archaeological Research in the Canary Islands: Island Archaeology off Africa’s Atlantic Coast

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