SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, July 18. (EUROPE PRESS) –
The second campaign of archaeological excavations that have been carried out in the Cueva del Tendal, which has just ended after a month of field work, has allowed the discovery of a large number of archaeological remains that are in an exceptional state of conservation.
In 2021, the IsoCAN team (‘Isolation and Evolution in Oceanic Islands: the human colonization of the Canary Islands’) resumed the archaeological excavations at the El Tendal site after more than thirty years of the last intervention, assuming a milestone for the archeology of La Palma.
In this first campaign, area C was excavated, where the largest stratigraphy of the site and the most important in the archipelago is preserved, which has allowed preliminary results to be obtained that place this area between the 4th century AD and the 11th century AD.
However, this year’s excavations “have been more ambitious,” said Jonathan Santana, director of the project, because they have also excavated in area B, which was already intervened in the eighties of the last century and is where one of the the oldest data on the aboriginal population of the Canary Islands. However, this area “is highly eroded and affected due to the action of looters.”
With regard to area C, new deposit levels have been identified that have meant “an authentic revolution” because it allows us to affirm that “the aborigines continued to live in El Tendal longer than we thought, something that breaks a paradigm that had been maintained since the years eighty,” Santana said.
With this new discovery, the stratigraphic strength of this site, which was already the largest in the Canary Islands, has increased from seven to nine metres. A large number of archaeological remains have been found in it “which are in an exceptional state of preservation,” explained the archaeologist. Now, with the application of cutting-edge methods and techniques in the laboratory, “promising results” are expected.
The multidisciplinary team has been made up of specialists in different areas of archeology such as Jonathan Santana, Juan Francisco Mederos, Amelia Rodríguez, Jorge Pais, Jacob Morales, Elías Sánchez, Aitor Brito, Idaira Brito, Enrique Fernández, Sandra Cancel and Simón Pierre.
VISIT TO THE SITE
The General Director of Cultural Heritage of the Government of the Canary Islands, Nona Perera; the Councilor for Culture and Historical Heritage of the Island Council, Jovita Monterrey, and the Councilor for Sports of the City Council of San Andrés y Sauces, Yasmina Curbelo, have visited the site.
Accompanied by the team from the second excavation campaign, the purpose of this visit was to see the preliminary results of the archaeological intervention that has just been completed.
This archaeological research is part of IsoCAN, a project of the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, in collaboration with the University of La Laguna, which has received a grant from the European Research Council to study the evolution and colonization of the Canary Islands.
In addition, this work also has the support of the General Directorate of Cultural Heritage and the Department of Historical Heritage of the Island Council of La Palma.
During the tour, Nona Perera highlighted that her department has signed a collaboration agreement with the two public universities in the Canary Islands to “guarantee the depth and continuity of these investigations over time.” It is necessary that the most powerful deposits of the archipelago be “worked globally”, as is the case of Cueva del Tendal, “in order to be able to benefit from all the documentation it contains on the Benahoarite population”.
From the Cabildo de La Palma, guided visits to the archaeological site have been scheduled while the excavation was underway, as notified by Jovita Monterrey, who considered that “we are obliged to protect our cultural legacy, value it and teach it so that it is known for the entire population.” Undoubtedly, “the experience has been very positive” for the dissemination of the heritage values of the archaeological site.
For her part, Yasmina Curbelo insisted on the importance of carrying out this type of archaeological work in the Cueva del Tendal because “they promote the revitalization of the municipality” but above all, they expand knowledge about our aboriginal past.
