Discover Jamaica


Guanches - The Aborigines Of The Canary Islands

The Guanches are believed to be the firstabout sea and boats. And how did they get
inhabitants of the Canary Islands. Where theythere in the first place if they didn't know
came from is still uncertain, but they couldanything  about  boats?
actually be a mix of Berbers from the north
of Africa, and scandinavian vikings. WrittenThe Spaniards started to discover the world
material from the spanish 'conquistadores' inin the early 1400's, and the Canary Islands
the 15th century states that the Guancheswere amongst the first territories to be
could  be  described  as  tall and blue-eyed.conquered. The conquest of the Canary Islands
began in 1402, when the expedition of Juan de
Modern research has given that the CanaryBethencourt landed in the island of
population of today has a significant levelLanzarote.
of blood group 0, just as in some areas of
North Africa, like the Berbers of Ait HaddiduEvery island fought back, but with little
of Upper Atlas. But the researchers havesuccess. The Guanches couldn´t stand the
still not found any solid explanation for themillitary pressure from the spanish. After
blue  eyes  of  the  Guanche  population.all, the Guanche society was at a Stone
Age-level, while Spain at the same time aimed
All mayor Canary Islands were inhabited byto conquer the whole world by using modern
the Guanches, and they were ruled byships and weapons. The story tells us that
different tribes. They lived at Stonethe biggest islands, the ones of Gran Canaria
Age-level, and often used volcanic caves andand Tenerife, were the last ones to fall,
rock formations for creating small villages.after famous battles such as the one of
Even though they lived on islands, it seemsAcentejo, Tenerife.
they never reached a high level of knowledge



1 A B C D 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118