This summer's archaeological excavation campaign at the El Bebedero site, in Teguise, has uncovered new finds that broaden our knowledge of the first communities to inhabit Lanzarote and their relations with the Roman world. The work, led by Pablo Atoche Peña, Professor of Prehistory at the Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, continues research that began in 1985 and strengthens the site's standing as one of the most important for understanding the protohistory of the Canary Islands.
Among the main discoveries is the completed excavation of a large paved area designed to collect rainwater and channel it into a cistern uncovered in the 2025 campaign. The complex, which also includes channels and settling tanks, is the first indigenous hydraulic infrastructure of this type and complexity documented in the archipelago's protohistory. Its use has been dated to between the 1st century BC and the 4th century AD, revealing the advanced technical knowledge that Lanzarote's ancient inhabitants had for managing a resource as scarce as water.
A settlement several centuries older than the Common Era
The dig has also made it possible to complete the documentation of two rooms located in earlier campaigns and to reach the site's deepest archaeological level. This layer has yielded new bone remains of sheep and goats and fragments of handmade pottery, as well as samples that will help pin down the age of human occupation at El Bebedero, which could date back several centuries before the Common Era.
Five centuries of contact with the Roman world
The recovered materials once again confirm the close relationship that Lanzarote's indigenous communities maintained with sailors and traders from the Mediterranean. Alongside the remains of domestic animals, shellfish, fish and birds, there are pottery vessels of different types, stone tools, grinding mills, stelae, bone awls, ornaments and various metal and glass objects.
Of particular importance are the many fragments of Roman amphorae, dated to between the 2nd century BC and the 4th century AD, which add to the collection found in earlier campaigns and to the almost complete example located in 2022. These finds suggest that for around five centuries there was exchange between the indigenous population and Roman sailors, probably through the trade of local products such as water, hides or cured meat in return for wine, oil and other goods transported in amphorae.
Technology to reconstruct the past
The 2026 campaign has also brought in tools such as 3D laser scanning, digital photogrammetry and drones, which have made it possible to document the excavated structures with great precision and record the daily progress of the work. At the same time, specialists in archaeology, biology, palaeontology and archaeometry are carrying out a comprehensive study of all the recovered materials to deepen knowledge of the site and its connections with other archaeological sites in Lanzarote and with the Mediterranean world.
A key site for the history of the Canary Islands
This year's results confirm El Bebedero, together with the nearby Buenavista site, as one of the essential places for reconstructing the earliest history of Lanzarote and of the archipelago as a whole. More than four decades of research continue to reveal how the island's first communities lived, how they adapted to the territory and what relations they maintained with the Mediterranean cultures of Antiquity.