The latest archaeological excavation campaign at San Marcial de Rubicón in Lanzarote has brought to light a wealth of bone, faunal, metal and ceramic materials, among others, which bear witness to those first contacts between indigenous and European culture. After the fieldwork, the research continues under the collaboration agreement between the Government of the Canary Islands, Yaiza Town Council, the University of La Laguna (ULL) and the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (ULPGC), with the study of the materials in the ULL’s Prehistory and Archaeology laboratory.
The co-directors of the ‘Proyecto Rubicón’, Dr María del Cristo González and Dr Esther Chávez, together with the company Baraka Arqueólogos and specialists in various fields, are carrying out the laboratory work, which consists mainly of cataloguing the items recovered at this first European settlement in the Canary archipelago. The project also has a strong teaching vocation, so students take part in the research on a voluntary basis.
It is worth recalling that this site has great scientific and heritage significance, since it was from here that the process of exploration and conquest of the Canary archipelago began in the 15th century. This is clearly reflected in the ceramics imported from Europe, which “appear in the same contexts, sharing space with indigenous ceramics, and not only indigenous ceramics from Lanzarote”, González reveals.
First results
The first results suggest that, besides the ceramic remains from Lanzarote, as is usual, there are also pieces from Fuerteventura and Gran Canaria, something unprecedented at this archaeological site. However, for González “it was to be expected, because these finds are the material evidence of what that written source, Le Canarien, tells us”, which records the expeditions to other islands by the Norman-Castilian enterprise led by Jean de Béthencourt and Gadifer de la Salle.
As was already announced during the fieldwork, the research team located a necropolis with a dozen burials, among which the bone remains of three babies and one infant stand out. Some of them were in a poorer state of preservation, so they “were consolidated and moved as a block”, following the instructions of the conservator Patricia Prieto, “so that they could be exhumed in a controlled setting such as the laboratory, thereby guaranteeing their preservation”, González explains.
It is important to stress that the discovery of these infant individuals raises the possibility that this is the first population of mixed heritage in the Canary Islands. For this reason, all the bones “are undergoing DNA analysis to determine their origin, and radiocarbon testing to establish their chronology”, González clarifies.
The archaeological research project at the San Marcial de Rubicón site will continue and enjoy greater stability thanks to the extension of the collaboration agreement between the Regional Ministry of Universities, Science and Innovation and Culture, Yaiza Town Council, the ULL and the ULPGC, which has gone from two to four years in duration (2024-2027), with an increase in budget and resources.