The first inhabitants
Scientists agree on one thing – there were no indigenous people in the Canary Islands. Thanks to radiocarbon dating, the excavations have only been established, that the tribes that the Europeans found on the islands, arrived at the archipelago at the latest 200 years BC. There remains to unravel the mystery of where and how.
According to the reports of the Spanish conquistadors, the inhabitants of Tenerife were tall, blond with fair skin and blue eyes. This information made, that for many years, without much success, the Basque islanders' roots were searched for, Celts, and even vikings. Recent research by archaeologists, cultural anthropologists and linguists, however, indicate many similarities between the peoples of the Canary Islands, and the Berber tribes - the indigenous people of North Africa and the Sahara.
Such ancestry of the first Canarians would also explain the light complexion of the inhabitants of Tenerife – many Berbers have blue eyes and red or light hair (belong to a distinct somatic type within the white race). Based on these studies, scientists at the University of La Laguna have concluded, that the first settlers came to the islands from what is now Tunisia and Morocco, however not voluntarily – several inland Berber tribes were most likely exiled to the islands in the first century. p.n.e. by the Romans. It would explain it, why the island tribes were alien to the ability to navigate.
The rediscovery of the Canary Islands
Seems, that in the Middle Ages all traces of the Canary Islands were lost. It is known, however, that Portuguese and Spanish merchants set out on them, slave traders, treasure hunters and missionaries. The first documented expedition was made by approx. 1312 r. Lancelloto Malocello of Italy, whose name was given to the island of Lanzarote. Several years later, the archipelago appeared on the maps of that time, most likely due to the Italian-Portuguese expedition from 1341 r.