The president of the Cabildo of Lanzarote, María Dolores Corujo, visited the archaeological site of Buenavista, in the municipality of Teguise, to learn about and assess the progress of the field work being carried out by the team of professionals led by Pablo Atoche, professor of Prehistory at the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.
The Buenavista site was discovered during agricultural improvement works in the area consisting of cultivating some land that had lost fertility and needed the renovation of the soil and sand. With dates ranging from the 10th century BC to the 6th century AD, the site is located in a hollow above the El Río cove, considered by some historians as "the best port in all of the Canary Islands". Surrounded by small elevations of the terrain through which rainwater ran and was stored in a small depression that acted as a mareta, it still preserves "in good condition" the remains of the first habitable building on the islands.
The president of the First Island Institution, María Dolores Corujo, who was very interested in Atoche's explanations, announced that the Cabildo of Lanzarote and the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria are working "to shape a collaboration agreement that will allow us to explore the site and obtain answers to the questions posed by this enclave, one of the oldest in the Canary archipelago".
Corujo understands that knowledge of our roots "is fundamental to understanding our current way of life, our nature, and our way of acting and relating to others". Looking to the future, she pointed out that the archaeological complex of Tiagua, where the Buenavista and El Bebedero sites are located, should be "a center of knowledge, study, and dissemination, but also of recreation, leisure, and enjoyment for residents and visitors", and expressed her confidence that it will become "an element that contributes to differentiating us as a tourist destination".
More about the Buenavista site
Atoche's team has already excavated an area of about 150 square meters, "15-20% of what we consider the settlement may occupy", and still holds many secrets to decipher.
In 2006, the first campaign of archaeological excavations was launched at the Buenavista site, work that lasted for the following three years. As a result of these four campaigns, a large amount of information and archaeological records contextualized in a large constructive structure were recovered, highlighting several dozen ceramic fragments modeled on a lathe corresponding to various containers (amphorae and other containers) and a terracotta, various metal pieces belonging to objects made of bronze, copper and iron, and a glass bead, all immersed in a sequence that places it in the field of the Phoenician-Punic culture established since the end of the second millennium BC in the Circle of the Strait.
The extensive series of dates and material records provided by Buenavista, together with the data provided by the coastal cordon of La Graciosa (El Descubrimiento site), raise new and interesting possibilities in relation to the initial process of human colonization of the Canary archipelago and with respect to the moment in which the Phoenician presence in the African Atlantic began.
