![]() The oldest human settlement seems to be no earlier than the first millennium B.C., according to absolute C 14 dating. ![]() They refer to the time(s) and way(s) they arrived on the islands, their geographic origin, and whether their descendants persist in the present-day population. There are several questions about the past and present of the Guanches that have attracted the curiosity of scientists since the 19 th century. In retaliation, the rebels, mainly men, were killed and massively deported by the conquerors. Even islands such as Lanzarote or Gomera, which pacifically received the first Norman and Castilian expeditions, were the scene of violent revolts because the natives were enslaved in large numbers to defray the cost of the military expeditions. The conquest was rather violent because the Guanches often fought fiercely against the invaders. Under the auspices of the Castilian crown, Europeans conquered the Canary Islands during the 15 th century, beginning with Lanzarote in 1402 and finishing with Tenerife in 1496. The Islands were already known to Mediterranean Classical cultures, but the Archipelago was rediscovered and visited by Genovese, Majorcan, Portuguese and French sailors during the 13 th and 14 th centuries. Fuerteventura and Lanzarote are the easternmost islands, the former being only a hundred km from the continent. The Canary Islands are a volcanic archipelago consisting of seven main islands situated in the Atlantic Ocean, facing the western Saharan coast of Africa. The European colonization of the Canary Islands introduced a strong sex-biased change in the indigenous population in such a way that indigenous female lineages survived in the extant population in a significantly higher proportion than their male counterparts. Male and female sub-Saharan African genetic inputs were also detected in the Canary population, but their frequencies were higher during the 17 th–18 th centuries than today. However, in contrast with their female lineages, which have survived in the present-day population since the conquest with only a moderate decline, the male indigenous lineages have dropped constantly being substituted by European lineages. ResultsĪutochthonous (E-M81) and prominent (E-M78 and J-M267) Berber Y-chromosome lineages were detected in the indigenous remains, confirming a North West African origin for their ancestors which confirms previous mitochondrial DNA results. In the present work, the analysis of Y-chromosome polymorphisms in the same samples, has shed light on the way the European colonization affected male and female Canary Island indigenous genetic pools, from the conquest to present-day times. However, direct ancient DNA genetic studies on indigenous and historical 17 th–18 th century remains, using mitochondrial DNA as a female marker, have only recently been possible. The origin and prevalence of the prehispanic settlers of the Canary Islands has attracted great multidisciplinary interest.
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