An archaeological excavation in the municipality of Tegueste is going to be decisive in delving into the world of the first settlers of Tenerife: the guanches. A team of the University of La Laguna (ULL) has reactivated the work in the Cueva de Los Cabezazos, in the Teguestero municipality, with the aim of resuming the investigations in a site in Tenerife “essential to approach the life and death of the Guanche society”, as those responsible point out. of the excavation.
The project opens new lines of research in Canary Islands while applying new methodologies not previously implemented, the ULL announced in a statement. The Los Cabezazos cave belongs to a group of natural cavities in the Agua de Dios ravine, in Tegueste. They were used by the aboriginal society as funerary and habitation spaces. In fact, this archaeological zone is “one of the Guanche settlements that has provided the most information about the time before the Conquest of the Castilians in Tenerife.
Los Cabezazos is “a reference site for the archeology of the Island”, since “it has been intervened on several occasions due to its great stratigraphic power and the abundant amount of archaeological materials”, explained Paloma Vidal, researcher Juan de la Cierva and co-director of the project. The first excavations in this cave were in the seventies of the 20th century by Luis Diego Cuscoy until concluding with a campaign directed by the Museum of Nature and Archeology of Tenerife in the nineties.
The co-directors of the project, the aforementioned Paloma Vidal and Salvador Pardo, will offer a talk to the public this Thursday about the results of these latest investigations. The conference, with free admission, will deal with the new lines of research related to aboriginal life and the application of innovative methodologies in this archaeological investigation, which have facilitated the collection of information on the behavior of the Guanche society, reports the Teguestera City Council in a statement. Those interested may attend the talk La Cueva Los Cabezazos, Tegueste: New readings for a reference archaeological site starting at 7:00 p.m. at Casa Los Zamorano.
The Consistory Teguestero began precisely in November of last year the construction of the Tegueste Archeology Interpretation Center Agua de Dios ravine, in one of the three epicenters of Tenerife archeology, next to Ladera de Martiánez (Puerto de la Cruz) or the Herques ravine (between Güímar and Fasnia). It housed Guanche settlements that left innumerable remains, most of them lost due to looting. Only the Teguestera part –there is another on land belonging to the municipality of La Laguna– preserves a hundred Guanche sites.
The City Council began at the end of last year the rehabilitation works of the building in the surroundings of the Plaza de San Marcos that will house this center. These are facilities that will highlight the archaeological and heritage value of the ravine. The investment for the rehabilitation of the building amounts to 244,815 euros, financed by the Cabildo de Tenerife.
The objective of reactivate excavations in one of the main occupation areas of the Tegueste menceyato it is obtaining a complete paleoenvironmental sequence that “allows us to study what the local landscape was like and its changes due to anthropic action over time,” explains Vidal. The collection of wood, the deforestation processes or the pastoral activities of the Guanches had an impact on the environment that provides information on the management of forest resources. Thus, the paloenvironmental sequence will be obtained for the first time at this site through the combination of various disciplines such as the analysis of pollen, photoliths, seeds and fruits together with the study of coals.
