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1965 cont.
The Early Inhabitants of the
"The very existence of a white people perpetuating an
advanced Neolithic Culture in the 14th Century of our era in the
extreme SW of the Old World was such an unaccountable oddity that the
association of the Canary Islands with Atlantis became quite a logical
presumption since the problem entered the field of erudite inquiry. The
presence of a people belonging to the white stock in a group of islands facing
western African Coast was only to hard to explain. The Romantic belief that the
Canaries were a relic of the sunken land described by Plato in the Timaeus, and
that their early dwellers were Atlantean refugees, expanded enthusiastically in
the last Century and was taken up by many an Atlantologist. Such an attitude of
mind seemed to be confirmed when Mr. Verneau, a famous anthropologist, found
that some ancient Canarians belonged to a human type which was very similar to
the Cro-Magnon race living throughout Europe in Upper Paleolithic. Actually,
only a few scholars suspected that the Canary islands were keeping a mystery as
striking as Atlantis itself, their earliest cultures having originated in the
"Recent discoveries would definitely prove that the
Note form Webmaster D. Clarke- It is well known Egyptian
used dyes in their hair, which only a chemical dna analysis can determine the
genetic makeup if caucasian by nature.
"The Canaries are a group of seven islands, the
nearest to the N.W. Coast of Africa being at about one hundred miles from the
shores of the Spanish Morocco, South of the Ifny Territory. These islands,
which lie on the African Shelf , originated between the end of the Tertiary and
the beginning of Quaternary, owning to the action of heavy and prolonged
volcanic forces from the Ocean bottom. The total lack of fossils belonging
to the Tertiary proves that they are comparatively recent. The climate of
the Canaries varies from island to island, ranging from desolate appearance of
Lanzarote and Fuerteventura where a heavy deficiency in the moisture compels
the natives to exert all their ingenuity to collect water, to the everlasting
springs of
" The Canaries were known to the ancients who gave
them the name of Insula Fortunatae" (happy and prosperous islands)."
Webmasters Note- The
"In the fourth book of Melpomene, Herodotus reports
that the Phoenician exploreres had made a round trip of Lybia (viz. Africa)
around 600 B.C., on behalf of the Egyptian Pharaoh Nekau (Necho) of the Dyn
XXVI., and that they returned to
Webmasters Notes- This may explain why Elliot Grafton Smith
not knowing the report of Melpomene of the 600 B.C. era discovered a Canary
Mummy that had egyptian practices of mummification that was exactly like the 26th
Dynasties practices. We now have to points of contention that Greek-Egyptians
knew of Canaries before 600 B.C., and maybe that the Egyptians knew about it
even earlier.
"An evidence of the real occurrence of such a voyage
lies on Herodotus' words when he reports that the Phoenicians had the Sun on
the right at a certain moment of their navigation. Some 100 years later, the
Carthaginians made a Voyage in the Ocean Islands which came down to us in the
account of the Periplus of Hanno. It seems probable that all these contacts
were casual and irregular, no actual connection having been established with
the Canary islands, and in fact, the knowledge of their existence went lost
soon after the fall of the Roman Empire. The historians report that a
Mauritanian King named Juba established a fishing business in the Canaries some
50 years before the Christian Era. However, the Canaries were rediscovered
during the fourteenth-century when some explorers and navigators from Genoa,
Italy (note form a Carthage region), who were at the services of the king of
Protugal, began to explore the Atlantic Islands. The Canary islands were
Probably reached by the Vivaldi brothers during their voyage with no return. In
1312, Lanzaroto Malocello of Genoa landed in the Island of Lanzarote which was
called in that way after his name. In 1341 the discoverer of the Azores, Nicoloso
da Recco (Recco is a small town near Genoa) reached the canaries. It must be
remembered that the arms of the City of Genoa appear on ancient charts of the
Canarian area. Other explorers and navigators made their way to the Canaries.
An account of the voyage made by Julian de Bethencourt is given in the
Chronical of "La Canarien" which was published in Paris in the year
1630. (Histoire de la premiere decouverte et conqueste des Canaries faite des
l' an 1402 par messire Jean de Bethencourt). In 1476, in appliance of the
Treaty of Tortdesillas defining the colonial spheres of Spain and Portugal, the
Canary Islands passed under Spanish control. The Spaniards had to fight hard
against the natives who did not accept their domination as well as their religion.
A long period of struggle took place until 1512 when the conquest and the
christianization of the islands were completed. THE NATIVES WERE EXTERMINATED
OR ABSORBED BY THE SPAINIARDS. Some others were exilaited and never returned
to their native land. The original culture and language of the ancient
Canarians went gradually lost. However, it must be taken into account that the Canary
Islands had become a strategic outpost of basic importance, particularly after
the Discovery of America in 1492.
It is a pity that there was no Deigo de Landa among the
Spanish conquerors who could take record of native words and legends. The sum
of the evidence from the skeletal remains of the natives shows that the early
inhabitants of the Canary Islands belonged to different ethnical groups.
Actually three physical types have been classed as
belonging to well identified stocks, while a fourth type, which is still
unclassified, was perhaps an intrusive element. A classification based on
scientific methods of research was first set up at the end of the nineteenth
century by the indefatigable Mr. R. Verneau, a reputed French Anthropologist.
His basic work is still valid, even if some revision is being carried out by
numerous scholars in the light of the evidence accumulated since Verneau times.
(R. Verneau 'Rapport sur une mission scientifique dans l' Archipel Canarien',
Paris, 1887.)"
"The most interesting amoung the physical types
classified by Mr. Verneau shows close similarities to the Cro-Magnon race of
the Upper Paleolithic Europe. This type was called "Guanche" by Mr.
Verneau, who gave a specialized ethical meaning to this word coming from the
native language of Tenerife where it was originally used to indicate "a
native of", or "a son of". Such people, being dominant element
in the population of Tenerife, were tall to very tall in stature (some were
over 6 feet of height), with the white-and-pink complextion of an englishmen,
and a long head (dolicocephalic) with a broad face and a typical triangle
shaped chin. They had big and low orbits with strong eyebrows. The body was
strongly built. Their hair ranged from fair to medium brown. Against popular
belief that all Guanches were blonde, it may be said that their hair was more
or less the same one can see on the bare head of people rushing up Trafalgar
Square on a Summer Day after five o'clock. Perhaps these folk were no longer
pure Cro-Magnon since before their settlement in the Canary islands. WE think
it advisable to call them Cromagnoniods rather than Guanches, owing to the
indiscriminate use made of this latter name, even by some scholars, to indicate
all the natives of the Canary Islands regardless of the racial group they
belonged to. The second physical type, classed as Semitic by Mr. Verneau, would
be better classed as Mediterranean. It was the dominant element in the islands
of Gran Canaria and Hierro. These people were small to medium in stature, with
a complexion ranging from light to dark brown like the Arabs and Southern
Italians of Sicily and Calabria. They were moderately dolicocephalic with a
long face and a narrow nose. They had black eyes and their hair ranged from
deep brown to dark. The body was slenderly built. The third type is featured by
a short head (brachicephalic) with a broad face. The nose is large and
flattened. The body is squabby. Some scholars think that this type is likely to
be related to the Mongolic stock, while others regard it as the result of a
mixture between Asiatic and Mediterranean types. The fourth type has not yet
been identified owing to the fact that only a few bones have been found.
Perhaps it was an occasional foreigner like the Negroid of Grimaldi in the
Upper Paleolithic cultures of SE France."
"All these settlements took place in very ancient
times before the invention of the wheel, and before the diffusion of metal
working. Metals were totally unknown to the Canarians. Like all the other Ocean
islands East of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, the Canaries were not inhabited by man
when the Cromagnoniods coming from the NW Coast of Africa landed in search of
better conditions of life. Actually , the Canary islands were the last outpost
these people could aim at, as further on there was nothing but the endless
waters of a huge sea. Taking into account that the Cromagnoniods had never been
a sea going race, we might reasonably conceive that they believed they had
reached the extreme boundary of the world."
Webmasters comment- There is no conclusive evidence that
Cro-Magnon did not know what a boat was, nor is there evidence he had not used
one. So, recent discoveries since 1965 have come to light that the Folsom man's
lithics in America have many affinities to the Solturian in France with that
ancient culture using spear lances as well in both cases used on Bison.
"However, when we turn to a tentative explanation of
their unawareness of any kind of shipping means, we are at a loss to understand
how they reached the Canaries, as in fact, no landing bridge ever existed to
connect these islands to the African Continent."
Webmasters comment-There has been speculation recently and
in the past that a land bridge might once have existed, but that it was not a
complete one and that a raft had to be used in the island hoping to the first
Canary Islands. This however as yet has not been proven, but earth fractures
may explain the possibility in the future or we are left with Cro-Magnon was at
the time Ocean going!
"It was a long time since the occurrence of the first
immigration, when other peoples belonging to a different racial group of
Mediterranean extraction, settled in the islands bringing a more developed
culture. How comes it that all these folk lost their knowledge of navigation
once landed on the Canary Islands?
Why the Canarians did never take the opportunity of picking
up some shipping practice from sailors or shipwrecked who, either occasionally
or on purpose must have landed on the islands, particularly when the
Phoenicians or the Carthagineans made some attempts to circumnavigate the
African Continent?"
Webmaster comments-In this way Canary Islands has the same
enigma as Easter Islands why would the people who depended on the sea and
arrived by boat not be interested in further travel due to remoteness, or a
lost art, or a lack of trees on the an island. The possibility of isolation
from persecution, isolation in privacy of bliss in a religious sense, or the
lack of need to not stray from a good fishing source, or easily attained life.
It would not seem agriculture was the reason the Cro-Magnons came to Canary
Islands it had to be food like fish or fruit, protection, or insulation from
climate that had gone wrong in Europe and in the Sahara, and the Glacial Ages
do reveal this to be true. The Canaries where insulated from the cold, and
scorching extremes for many thousands of years. To a point that why would the
climate change any time sooner for them? In both cases a drought on Easter
Island or Canary Islands would have been devastating, but in the Canary Islands
it was less likely due to the regional thermals. The greatest danger to the
Canaries is Tsunami, Volcanic Eruptions, or Earthquakes if we do not include a
near by asteroid.
The Early Inhabitants of the
Canary Islands, By Alf Bajocco Part II Discusses Language!
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