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The Guanches (Original Inhabitants) Of The Canary Islands

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Has there ever been research done into the Guanches ,the original inhabitants of the Canary Islands?Before being completely taken over by the Spanish settlers about 350 years ago the islands were populated by very fair-skinned,tall and apparently mostly blond people.They were driven into the caves and over time died out.Given that the islands are only 70 miles from the African coast it seems strange that this aryan type of people existed here.Where did they come from?Were they the last survivors of the continent of Atlantis?Some people claim that the seven Canary Islands are the tips of the highest mountains on the fabled continent.
 
They were related by both language and genetics to people from Morocco.

Not too surprising really.

:p
 
Sebastian said:
They were related by both language and genetics to people from Morocco.
I think I saw that mentioned in Heyerdahl's book about his reed boat transatlantic voyage. He may even have built Ra (or one of them) in Morocco.

"At the time of the rediscovery of the Canaries they were inhabited by an indigenous people called the 'Guanches'. We know from cultural similarities that the Guanches were Berbers from the mountains of Northwest Africa. How they reached the Canaries has been the subject of much speculation, particularly since at the time of the rediscovery they apparently had no knowledge of seafaring techniques - surprising for a people living on a small island with other nearby islands clearly visible.

There is evidence for two distinct Guanche racial types , usually referred to as 'Cro-Magnoid' and 'Mediterranean'. Pottery remnants suggest there were up to four distinct waves of colonisation, whilst carbon dating techniques suggest that the first colonists arrived during the first millenium BC.

The Guanches named their island Benahoare, and divided it into 12 kingdoms, each with its own ruler (see map, list). Estimates of the Guanche population at the time of the conquest range from 1,200 to over 4,000. "

(From

History of La Palma )
 
Small isolated populations often lose seemingly important elements form their toolkits and can adopt practices which, on the face of it, seem counter-intuitive.

A good example of this is the case of the Tasmanian aborigines. Not only had their toolkit become remarkably impoverished by comparison with their contemporaries on the mainland, but, by the time of the European invasion, it was much simpler than it had been at the end of the Ice Age when Tasmania was cut off by rising sea levels. They had also ceased to eat fish. :confused:

However, they did not form kingdoms, but had a sort of primitive democracy/ gerontocracy form of "government", very similar to the mainland aborigines' practices.
 
Whistling Language and the Last Cro-Magnans

Heard an interesting Paul Harvey about the Canary Islands and Silbo Gomera, the "Whistling Language", and according to big Paul it was the last outpost of the Cro-magnans in the 1500's.

The language certainly exists, as I discovered HERE:

Ancient 'Whistling Language' Facing a Revival
By SARAH ANDREWS, Associated Press Writer

SAN SEBASTIAN, Canary Islands - Juan Cabello takes pride in not using a cell phone or the Internet to communicate. Instead, he puckers up and whistles.

Cabello is a "silbador," until recently a dying breed on tiny,
mountainous La Gomera, one of Spain's Canary Islands off West Africa. Like his father and grandfather before him, Cabello, 50, knows "Silbo Gomero," a language that's whistled, not spoken, and can be heard more than two miles away.

This chirpy brand of chatter is thought to have come over with early African settlers 2,500 years ago. Now, educators are working hard to save it from extinction by making schoolchildren study it up to age 14.

Silbo — the word comes from Spanish verb silbar, meaning to whistle — features four "vowels" and four "consonants" that can be strung together to form more than 4,000 words. It sounds just like bird conversation and Cabello says it has plenty of uses.

"I use it for everything: to call to my wife, to tell my kids
something, to find a friend if we get lost in a crowd," Cabello said. In fact, he makes a living off Silbo, performing daily exhibitions at
a restaurant on this island of 147 square miles and 19,000 people.

A snatch of dialogue in Silbo is posted at
http://www.agulo.net/silbo/silbo.mp3 .....


Now, the Cro-Magnan connection is harder to find, but I did find THIS LINK:

This document is the history about Berbers and Guanches, the original people at Gran Canaria and The Canary islands. The people that are first mention in the history-books are the Berber- people. A people from the northwest of Africa. From archeological remains, one can see that the race was Cro-Magnon. They were small and robust with a large skull. They were foremost shephards with flocks of sheeps and goats. They fetched the food from the see and from the land they fetched vegetarian herbs. They also had a small and simple agriculture.

The word Canary or Canarie is probably from the Berber-people. Two of the tribes were called Caananites and Canarii. The first Berbers arrived to The Canary-islands about 2.500 years b.c. The people living on Tenerife at that time were called Guanches. That word came from guan (man) and chenerfe (tenerife). With the years all of the seven Canary-islands people were called Guanches. There's an outdoor-museum on the way from Maspalomas up to Fataga. About 7 km on that road you'll find this area. There they've build up a village similar to the original. One gets an insight how these original-people Berbers and Guanches lived on Gran Canaria and The Canary Islands.


Does anybody know anymore? Were there Cro-Magnans living alongside Homo-Sapiens up to 1500 AD?
 
There are Cro-Magnons on this message board right now - you, me, everybody except a few badgers, gnus, birds, and so on. Cro-Magnon was the site-specific name for the anatomically modern humans (homo sapiens sapiens) who replaced Neanderthal in western Europe.

The whistling language is plenty interesting, though.
 
Yep Peni got it spot on - its just a general term for the early modern humans in Europe. They tended to be tall (not short) and robust but no more so than any other modern humans. We have got slightly less robust but we are them and they are us for all intents and purposes.

I'll ask my dda about this when I speak to him as there was a piece on Radio 4 about it awhile ago and I remember him mentioning it (as he is a linguist and loves things like that).

Ahhhhhhh here it is:

I'm very disappointed not to have been working during a week in which the interviewees included a cocktail shaker and the world whistling champion. Last Tuesday we heard how, until recently, Silbo, the ancient Whistling language of La Gomera island in the Canary Islands was in danger of becoming extinct. Cue the World Whistling Champion David Morris, fresh from his triumph at the annual championships in North Carolina.
Listen again:
Whistling one
Whistling two
A chirpy chappy he was indeed. "You don't hear whistling very much these days" he said. "It's impossible to whistle if you are feeling unhappy". I think we ought to put that to the test. Come along then everybody - pucker up, frown and see if any noise comes out.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/today/newsletter/newsletter_20040109.shtml

and (although this appears to be the same as the firs tlink above)):

6th January 2004

0725
Why is the local government of La Gomera Island making huge efforts to revive its whistling language?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/today/listenagain/ztuesday_20040106.shtml
 
Mr R I think the word Canaries comes from the latin Canis and means the island of dogs
 
I based this imaginary planet on the ancient kingdoms of Canaria; the Guanches were the aboriginal inhabitants of the islands, and some had a whistling language as described.

I am not sure that the Berbers were definitely present or not; this factoid might be slightly controversial if I recall correctly.
Certainly the Guanches were cro-magnons, as are we all.
 
I always had my doubts about Roger Whittaker.

So, scuse my ignorance, but Cro-Magnon man is interchangeable with anatomically modern humans, as in no earlier than 100,000 years ago?

Have very much enjoyed the links by the way Mr RING - cheers for posting 'em, fella.
 
Conners said:
So, scuse my ignorance, but Cro-Magnon man is interchangeable with anatomically modern humans, as in no earlier than 100,000 years ago?

The type locality is Cro Magnon in the Dordogne and it usually specifically describes the robust early humans in Europe but as it has no scientific basis (whereas Neanderthal man usually corresponds to Homo (sapiens) neanderthalensis) so it could be used for any modern humans depending on how loosely you want to use the term (personally I'd find it only really applicable to the group I mention) - the 100,000 year old humans (like those from Israel) have been termed proto-Cro Magnon which has even less use in defining a group and isn't used these days (much).
 
Me too. (checks cranial measurements)

But the Guanche are worth a thread all of their own. They were in many ways a primitive people (no metal on the islands) and lived in caves (common, why bother to biuld if you can find a lava tube to live in.) and though they did practice agriculture, the land was better suited to their flocks and herds.

The spanish invaders quickly realised that these seeming primitives were in fact a advanced society...what they did not realise was that they were the last remmnant of the ancient egyptian religion....mummies, pyramids and all.

didnt know the whistling language was still around tho`
 
I saw a documentary years ago about the Canaries and the whistling language. They were comparing it to traditional Swiss yodelling, which despite it's modern naffness and C and W connotations, is actually an ancient and highly developed method of communicating long distances in mountinous areas. It would be interesting to know if there were any other specialised mountain languges in the world.
 
From the front page:

Herders' Whistled Language Shows Brain's Flexibility

James Owen in London
for National Geographic News
January 5, 2005

Shepherds who whistle to each other across the rocky terrain of the Canary Islands off northwest Africa are shedding light on the language-processing abilities of the human brain, according to scientists.

Researchers say the endangered whistled "language'" of Gomera island activates parts of the brain normally associated with spoken language, suggesting that the brain is remarkably flexible in its ability to interpret sounds as language.

A Silbador from Gomera in the Canary Islands uses the whistled language Silbo Gomero as a means of remote communication. The language recodes the vowels and consonants of individual Spanish words into whistles.

The findings are published in tomorrow's issue of the science journal Nature.

"Science has developed the idea of brain areas that are dedicated to language, and we are starting to understand the scope of signals that can be recognized as language," said David Corina, co-author of the study and associate professor of psychology at the University of Washington in Seattle.

Silbo Gomero is a substitute for Spanish, with individual words recoded into whistles. Vowels and consonants are replaced by tones that are whistled at different frequencies. ("Silbo" comes from the Spanish "silbar"—to whistle.)

Known as silbadores, the whistlers of Gomera are traditionally shepherds and other isolated mountain folk. Their novel means of staying in touch allows them to communicate over long distances—Silbador whistles can travel up to six miles (ten kilometers).

"Spanish consonants are mapped into four different whistles and the five vowels into two whistles," explained lead researcher Manuel Carreiras, psychology professor at the University of La Laguna on the Canary island of Tenerife. "There is much more ambiguity in the whistled signal than in the spoken signal," he added.

Because whistled "words" can be hard to distinguish, silbadores also rely on repetition and context to make themselves understood.

Brain Activity

The study team used neuroimaging equipment to contrast the brain activity of silbadores while listening to whistled and spoken Spanish. Results showed the left temporal lobe of the brain, which is usually associated with spoken language, was engaged during the processing of Silbo Gomero.

The researchers found that other regions in the brain's frontal lobe also responded to the whistles, including those activated in response to sign language among deaf people. However, brain areas activated in experienced Silbadores differed significantly from those in nonwhistlers who listened to the same sounds but could not understand them.

"Our results provide more evidence about the flexibility of human capacity for language in a variety of forms," Corina said. "These data suggest that left-hemisphere language regions are uniquely adapted for communicative purposes, independent of the modality of signal. The non-Silbo speakers were not recognizing Silbo as a language. They had nothing to grab onto, so multiple areas of their brains were activated."

Carreiras said silbadores are able to pass a surprising amount of information via their whistles.

"The shepherds could whistle a conversation about relativity theory if they wanted, however, they usually talk about other things," he said. "In daily life they use whistles to communicate short commands, but any Spanish sentence could be whistled."

A silbador sticks a finger in his or her mouth to increase the whistle's pitch. The other hand can be cupped like a megaphone to direct the sound.

African Roots

Carreiras says the origins of Silbo Gomero remain obscure but that indigenous Canary Islanders, who were of North African extraction, already had a whistled language when Spain conquered the volcanic islands in the 15th century.

Whistled languages survive today in Papua New Guinea, Mexico, Vietnam, Guyana, China, Nepal, Senegal, and a few mountainous pockets in southern Europe. There are thought to be as many as 70 whistled languages still in use, though only 12 have been described and studied scientifically.

This form of communication is an adaptation found among cultures where people are often isolated from each other, according to Julien Meyer, a researcher at the Institute of Human Sciences in Lyon, France. "They are mostly used in mountains or dense forests," he said.

Whistled languages, Meyer said, "are quite clearly defined and represent an original adaptation of the spoken language—like a local cellular phone—for the needs of isolated human groups."

But with modern communication technologies now widely available, researchers say whistled languages like Silbo Gomero are threatened with extinction.

"It was a way of communication over deep valleys and steep mountains," Carreiras said. "Now you can do that with cell phones."

With dwindling numbers of Gomera islanders still fluent in the language, Canaries authorities are taking steps to try to ensure its survival.

Since 1999 Silbo Gomero has been taught in all of Gomera's elementary schools. In addition, locals are seeking assistance from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

"The local authorities are trying to get an award from UNESCO to declare [Silbo Gomero] as something that should be preserved for humanity," Carreiras added.

Source
 
The paper is:

Carreiras, M., Lopez, J., Rivero, F. & Corina, D. (2005) Linguistic perception: Neural processing of a whistled language. Nature. 433 (7021). 31 - 2.

Silbo Gomero is a whistled language that is a rare and endangered surrogate of Spanish, used by shepherds on the island of La Gomera in the Canary Islands for communication over long distances on difficult terrain. Here we show that areas of the brain normally associated with spoken-language function are also activated in proficient whistlers, but not in controls, when they are listening to Silbo Gomero. Our findings demonstrate that the language-processing regions of the human brain can adapt to a surprisingly wide range of signalling forms.
 
Dozens of Mummies and Skeletons Found in Canary Islands Cave Tomb

Source: ancient-origins.net
Date: 22 February, 2020

An 8th to 10th century grave containing 72 pre-Hispanic 'Guanche' natives has been discovered on Gran Canaria. In June last year an amateur archaeologist from the group 'El Legado’ flew a drone over the Valley of Guayadequeon on the island of Gran Canaria, part of the Spanish Canary Islands, and identified the ancient sacred site. But the team of researchers only recently told authorities of the “cave-tomb” fearing it might be looted or vandalized.

The Guanches were the aboriginal inhabitants of the Canary Islands and in 2017 the first genome-wide data project confirmed they were of North African origin - descended from the Berbers of Libya. These hunter-gatherers migrated to the archipelago around 1,000 BC and lived in caves and huts with a rudimentary knowledge of farming. Similarly to ancient Egyptians, their rituals led them to embalm and mummify their members of higher social standing, who were left in caves, while lower classes of people were buried in the ground.

The amateur archaeologists identified a unique site that archaeologists found contained the mummified ancient remains of 72 pre-Hispanic 'Guanche' natives - comprising 62 adults and 10 newborns - dated to the 15th century AD.

https://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-archaeology/guanche-mummies-0013321
 
Does anybody know anymore? Were there Cro-Magnons living alongside Homo-Sapiens up to 1500 AD?
They never left. If you see a properly robust person with coarse features, there is an excellent chance that they have a large complement of CM genes. CMs are basically HS but more robust, or HS is the gracile form of CM.
 
I was in Tenerife in 2018, my first trip to the Canaries. Just astounding: a Spanish-African volcanic jewel...the ancient forests of La Gomera were fantastic...https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi (be warned that if you go there as a tourist, the bus climbs nearly 5,000 feet at a brisk pace...not for the faint-hearted).

The Guanches are remembered just in spirit...this announcement is an incredible find
 
I find it interesting that nobody has managed to classify the languages of the Guanches yet. I might take a punt at their philology oneday, as I have at suspicion that there is a bit more Pellasg spoken in the entire ancient Mediterranean than anyone suspects.
 
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