For decades, even centuries, bioanthropology has documented violent deaths among indigenous communities in the Canary Islands. But what archaeology has never been able to prove is that none of these episodes of deadly violence were perpetrated with a metal knife. Until today, thanks to an investigation by Tibicena and El Museo Canario, published by Scientific review of the Quaternary. The cuts in the analyzed bone remains of a corpse, according to bioanthropologists Verónica Alberto, Teresa Delgado and archaeologist Javier Velasco, were produced “by the use of metal objects.” What was not found was the murder weapon.
The article In the bowels of the volcano. Deadly violence in the expansion of Amazigh groups towards the Canary Islands, published by the aforementioned scientific journal, studies ““evidence of bone trauma in two individuals, a man and a woman respectively, and discusses the cause of their deaths.” The findings indicate that “the man was stabbed multiple times with a type of dagger that could not have been manufactured in the Canary Islands due to the absence of metallic minerals, suggesting a form of lethal violence unknown among the indigenous population.”
The only metal remains found in the sites of the archipelago belong to the last stage of the indigenous culture, when European navigators began to visit the islands (14th century) and concluded with the conquest that lasted almost the entire 15th century. So, how can we explain the use of a “double-edged dagger”, as Alberto describes the weapon used? Given that the male’s corpse is dated to around the 3rd century AD, archaeologists consider it plausible that it was imported at the beginning of the colonization of the islands, in this case Lanzarote, the first island to be colonized according to several recent investigations. But this is not the only hypothesis; in fact, they lean towards the thesis that the perpetrator of the crime would have been perpetrated by someone other than the aborigines, sailors who had landed on the island.
This corpse – found in the late 60s in the volcanic tube of La Chifletera, municipality of Yaiza, in one of the few spaces that were not buried by the lava of the eruption of Timanfaya, according to the information Canary Islands now Marco Moreno, one of the authors who signed the article, is the oldest indigenous human remains found so far in the Islands, as this newspaper announces in chapter 4 of Amaziges of the Canary Islands, history of a culture.
But there are traces, due to the type of cuts observed in the bone remains, that allow the researchers to conclude that “a sharp metal object” was used. The signs of trauma “indicate that this man probably died from multiple injuries during a violent confrontation. The injuries to the thoracic elements were severe, leading to a fatal outcome. “Up to nine injuries were located, most concentrated in the back, which must have affected vital organs such as the lungs, liver and kidneys and, probably, the heart.”
Corpse of Los Jameos del Agua
In the other criminal death analyzed in the investigation, in this case the victim is a woman, “the traces observed consist of several violent blows to the skull and correspond to the practices of murderous violence of the indigenous Canarian populations, although carried out to an extreme degree.”
The dating of the female individual is a little less ancient than that of the man; but the death occurred between the 3rd and 4th century of the common era, at the other end of the island, to the north, more precisely in the volcanic tube of Los Jameos del Agua, one of the attractions of Lanzarote touched by the talent of César Manrique. The remains were located at the end of the 70s of the last 20th century.
The case of Los Jameos del Agua stands out for the extreme violence to which the woman was subjected. “It was possible to determine,” explains Verónica Alberto, “the presence of multiple traumas, two of which should have caused her immediate death. The blows were inflicted with a blunt and heavy object that, in addition, would have had a pointed projection. A club? asks the archaeologist. “Unfortunately, we lack information on the context of the discovery and, above all, only the skull could be recovered, and therefore studied.”
In addition to the fatal injuries of the two subjects, the authors of the study emphasize that “the early chronology of the remains and the type of weapons used provide new data to explore the first stages of the stable colonization of the island. For this same reason, it is a good opportunity to reflect on the expressions of violence among the Amazigh populations of the continent, poorly known from an archaeological point of view, from the behavioral models that they bring to the islands.
The researchers conclude that “the two cases presented constitute the oldest bioanthropological evidence of the island of Lanzarote and, practically, of the entire archipelago, which is why they constitute a privileged resource for the investigation of the first stages of human occupation of the Canary Islands.”, in addition to being an instrument “to deepen the contexts of conflict and violence experienced by these first populations.”
This work received funding from the Directorate General of Cultural Heritage of the Government of the Canary Islands under the research program Historical study of the bioanthropological remains of La Chifletera and Los Jameos del AguaThe study is also part of the SEVIOCAN research project. Semantics of violence in indigenous societies of the Canary Islands (PID 2022-142419OB-I00), funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation.
