He Government of the Canary Islandshe Tenerife Council and the Tegueste Town Hall have held a recent strategic meeting to plan the actions that will be carried out in the next four years with the aim of inaugurating the first archaeological park in Tenerife in the area of Agua de Dios Ravinewhich has been declared Asset of Cultural Interest (BIC).
The meeting was attended by prominent members of political and civil servants, such as the general director of Culture and Cultural Heritage, Miguel Ángel Clavijo; the insular director of Territorial Heritage and Historical Heritage, Isabel Esteban; and the mayor of Tegueste, Ana Rosa Mena, accompanied by their technical teams. During the visit to the place where the museum space will be located, the current state of the works was evaluated and the environment that will be open to the public was analyzed.
Among the proposals presented by Clavijo is the continuation of archaeological investigations at this site, particularly in the significant Cueva de los Cabezazos, and the creation of interpretive trails to enrich the experience of visiting the archaeological park. The Government’s objective is to revitalize this ravine, which was one of the main settlement areas of the Menceyato of Tegueste, so that the community can enjoy and learn about the history of the Guanche people in this part of the island of Tenerife.
For its part, the Cabildo of Tenerife considers it essential to complete the rehabilitation works in a short period of time, with the intention of enabling the space as a museum that describes and narrates the aboriginal activities that can be observed during visits to the sites of the Agua De Dios Ravine, as Esteban explained.
The Tegueste City Council expressed its gratitude for the collaboration and continued support of both institutions, highlighting that this meeting marks the last push necessary to carry out the interpretation project of the ravine and make it accessible to the public.
In summary, the Government will be responsible for adapting the path that allows visiting the archaeological site of the Cueva de los Cabezazos, among other places of interest, and will carry out investigations. The Cabildo will continue to finance the restoration and conservation works of the building used for the interpretation center, while the City Council will maintain its role as resource manager.
The Cueva de los Cabezazos is part of a set of natural cavities in the Barranco del Agua de Dios, used at the time by the aboriginal society as both funerary and housing areas. This archaeological area has more than one hundred documented sites and is one of the Guanche settlements that has provided a large amount of information about the pre-European era of the island of Tenerife.
Given its importance, the General Directorate of Culture and Cultural Heritage has resumed archaeological excavations in the cave this year, in collaboration with a multidisciplinary team from the University of La Laguna (ULL). These investigations are delving deeper into the paleoenvironmental sequence of the site for the first time to better understand the impact of Guanche society on this natural environment. Currently, the archaeological materials recovered during the last excavation campaign are being analyzed using new methodologies in the Prehistory Laboratory of the Department of Geography and History of the ULL.
