The General Directorate of Cultural Heritage is promoting an archaeological investigation in a volcanic tube inside a casa honda in La Degollada, in the municipality of Yaiza, to try to locate aboriginal occupation soil. "This is the first time that an excavation has been carried out in a pre-Hispanic settlement of these characteristics in the southern part of Lanzarote, so it will serve as a comparison to other similar cavities that have been studied on the island", they point out from the Canarian Government.
The Majo cave, also known as Doña Juana's cave, is a volcanic tube that was reconditioned as a casa honda to be able to live inside and has always been closely related, within the scope of La Degollada, to the indigenous population. “Last year an intervention was carried out in this cave and in another construction that was thought to be aboriginal. This year, due to the results, we concentrated our efforts on the interior and exterior of the volcanic tube”, explains Nona Perera, general director of Cultural Heritage.
The project called ‘Fenauso Valley, uses and territorial customs from pre-European times to the present’, responds to a citizen demand since “for years, the Los Mahos de La Degollada Neighborhood Association has requested this investigation to learn about the history of their town”, explains Perera.
The director of the project, Jesús Cáceres, specifies that the intervention focuses mainly on the recovery of the external environment through an extensive excavation that allows “locating walls and understanding how the cave is conditioned to be able to access the interior”. At the same time, the work team is also “focusing on the interior of the volcanic tube to see if we can find an aboriginal occupation soil in the habitat areas”.
The cavity has been “covered by the ashes of Timanfaya and other sediments, so the floors may be quite intact and well preserved, which will allow us to discover a room that has been little transformed over the years”, anticipates the director of the project.
It should be noted that the roof does not have sufficient stability because there have been collapses that have removed part of the material, so “for the moment it is too dangerous to work inside” permanently, says Joaquim Ehrenhofer, archaeologist in this intervention.
Preliminary phases
With this project, a comprehensive historical investigation of the Fenauso Valley is being carried out, which has involved a study of the written sources kept in the Historical Archive of Yaiza, as well as the revision of the notarial protocols of the 18th century of the Provincial Archive of Las Palmas Joaquín Blanco.
"Oral information is also a fundamental resource when approaching this study, both for archaeological and cultural and linguistic issues, that is why oral interviews have been carried out with people linked to the Valley, especially older people, who have helped to locate the enclave that is now being excavated", they explain from Heritage.
Before carrying out the archaeological excavation in the Majo cave, detailed surveys of the area were carried out with 3D topographic surveys in the casa hondas and archaeological soundings to verify the adscription of the sites, since there was no archaeological record on the surface.
Now, they affirm that the set of data generated by the field work "has allowed to document in a detailed way heritage structures, of great richness and singularity, that are still preserved; in such a way that knowledge about the history of this space of the payment of La Degollada is expanded from aboriginal times to the present".