Settlement and Social Change of an Isolated Territory? Proposals on the Evolution of the Territorial Occupation of the Island of Gran Canaria in Pre-Hispanic Age

Abstract

The colonization of the Canary Islands has been the subject of several studies, however human settlement in the different territories and its evolution over time is an issue that has received practically no research attention. In this paper we provide an interpretative proposal of the occupation dynamics of Gran Canaria between the 3rd and 15th centuries ad from a temporal and comparative perspective based on the Braudelian longue durée. To this end, different variables -soils, visibility, accessibility, etc.- were established and analysed by means of a Geographic Information System -gis-, using the isochrones as a minimum observation reference. Thus, the statistical study first, and then the historical and territorial analysis of the archaeological sites, made it possible to implement a diachronic scenario of the aboriginal settlement of Gran Canaria, taking environmental infill theories as a reference. The result is the interrelation of different ways of land use, both materially and ideologically, conforming, accordingly, different archaeological landscapes.