Memory stones, Aboriginal Route

Memory stones, aboriginal route

Archaeology speaks about the past. About forgotten memories and, many times, about vanished places.

These places and objects have a second chance due to the hard work of those dedicated people who study the past. The archaeological work at the site of La Fortaleza has changed the way we understand this place.

 

Visited in the end of the XIX Century by many relevant archaeologists, it was appointed as an indigenous temple. During the sixties and seventies, it was then interestedly linked without basis to the site of Ansite, the latest indigenous resistance and surrender place against the Spanish troops.

It was not until the nineties when the first archaeological excavation was done in the area. However, the conclusions were disappointing and the investigation didn’t have continuity. In 2012, the team ‘Tibicena Arqueología y Patrimonio’ made a first approach to it, and elevated the number of architectural structures of several kinds to fifteen.

In November 2015, with financial support by the Cabildo de Gran Canaria, they continued with their job in the same area where Rosa Schuelter started it decades ago. And, surprisingly, the circular structure they were excavating concluded to be three independent structures (three houses?). One of them had an astonishing architectural complexity: a circular structure with a small room attached, which linked to a traditional housing structure through a corridor with a small staircase.

 

We immediately find a ring-shaped structure and finally a huge cross-shaped house. The walls over those slopes do not mean the area has a farming past, but the ruins of a village’s perimeter and its houses. Their container-shapes helped the protection and the cleaning of the stones from the contiguous cultivated areas. Now, the stones and the earth studied in the area speaks about our History, which will never be forgotten.

This text has been written by Marco Moreno, archaeologist from La Fortaleza

The Aboriginal Route  finish in La Fortaleza,  Do you want to discover this route?

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