The peopling of the Canaries by the Berbers: new data and new hypotheses

Résumé 0

Although the Canary Archipelago was known to classical authors, the date and manner of its peopling remains highly controversial. Remarkably, when the first maritime explorations from the Mediterranean reach the islands, they were still in the Neolithic. Despite extensive evidence for contact, metal technology was never transferred. Even more remarkably, the inhabitants, the Guanche, had no seagoing tradition, despite the evidence for inter-island cultural transfers. A lack of radiocarbon dates has meant that the chronology of the settlement of the Canaries has remained controversial, with wild guesses circulating in the literature. The genocide of the Guanche in the eighteenth century remains an unacknowledged moral stain on European colonial traditions. The paper reviews the classical accounts, and the records of first contact from 1312 onwards. Linguistics points strongly to a connection with the Berbers of the Maghreb, although the extermination of the inhabitants before their language was properly recorded makes this uncertain. Some types of cultural evidence, such as the granaries with door locks on Gran Canaria, point to Berber contact. However, other practices, such as mummification, log-coffins, body stamps and terracotta images of deities seem highly idiosyncratic. Although the Guanche practised minimalist agriculture from ca. 300 AD onwards, with barley, wheat, goats, sheep and pigs, some islands had reverted to foraging by the medieval era. Recent aDNA work has confirmed the North African connection but the results remain frustratingly unspecific.