The end of a long journey. Tumulus burials in Gran Canaria (Canary Islands) in the second half of the first millennium AD

ABSTRACT This paper addresses the study of tumulus necropolises among the pre-Hispanic population of Gran Canaria. In this first characterisation, their emergence is contextualised in the social framework of the ancient Canarians and historical links with the North African sphere are proposed. Published radiocarbon determinations for the tumulus phenomenon of the first millennium AD on the continent have been reviewed and a Bayesian model has been created to estimate the onset and later tempo of this cultural expression on the island and its relationship with the African context. The tempo plot technique has also been used to examine the temporal activity pattern of tumulus necropolises in Gran Canaria. The results show that it was a late phenomenon, basically constrained to the eighth to eleventh centuries AD, and that it therefore represents a break with previous funerary practices. To explain these circumstances, the chronological data are related to the available archaeological and genetic information. They point to a complex process of endogenous social change, probably accelerated by external influences inserted within regional dynamics on the African mainland. It is proposed that tumulus monuments in Gran Canaria were the insular expression of this continental phenomenon that reached the island by the hand of people different from those who were the protagonists of the island’s first settlement event.