Archaeologist claims that Lanzarote was colonised far earlier than thought

An archaeologist has claimed that the colonisation of Lanzarote could have occurred 1,000 years before the birth of Christ, far earlier than previously thought.

Pablo Atoche, professor of Prehistory at the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, described how recent finds at the sites of El Bebedero and Buenavista in Teguise have caused a reassessment of the early history of the Canary Islands.

According to Atoche, six factors – carbon dating, geological strata, imported Punic relics dating from the 6^th century BC, genetic analysis of human remains and barley seeds and estimates of population growth – indicate that Lanzarote could have been settled by north Africans up to 1,000 years before the common era.  

Instead of a remote, isolated culture, Atoche believes early islanders were “a connected, changing society”, highly capable of adapting to the conditions of Lanzarote.