The origin of the name
For some, the term "guanche" would derive from a Guanche name: "wanchinet" or "gwanchinet" meaning "man or son" of the "great volcano" (chinet). In Roman antiquity, the great volcano was assimilated to the Teide, and this name designated the sons or men of Tenerife. And only them. Expression that would have been practically taken up by the Portuguese and Genoese explorers of the end of the 13th centurye century that called them "gwan chin", "the children of the great volcano". By extension, it is under this name that the entire pre-Hispanic population of the archipelago is usually referred to. Some argue that this is a mistake, given the lack of a maritime relationship between the populations of each island. Since no archaeological excavations have been carried out to attest to the maritime practices of these different populations living isolated on their own island. Each of the islands would have been home to a different people with a different name: Bimbaches in El Hierro, Benahoritas in La Palma, Gomeritas or Gomeros in La Gomera, Canarios in Gran Canaria, Majos in Fuerteventura and Lanzarote and Guanches in Tenerife. Critics of this reading point out that these are modern denominations that have no historical basis. At present, however, it is the term Guanche that is used to name all the indigenous populations of the Canary Islands. The dating of the Guanche settlements has also been the subject of different deciphers, but to date the most recent research favours the hypothesis of a settlement in two phases: the first around the 6th century BC. ("archaic" Berber settlement) as evidenced by the archaeological area of the Cueva de los Guanches in Icod de los Vinos in Tenerife and the second in the 1st century AD, consisting of Romanized Berber settlements.
White economy
It was based on the breeding of species from the African continent. The goats provided them with most of their meat and milk, from which they obtained butter, and they also raised sheep, pigs and dogs, which were used for herding. At the same time, agriculture, which was essentially cereal-based, had a different importance depending on the island, the most developed being that of Gran Canaria. They did not know the plough, but cultivated cereals (barley and wheat) and pulses. It was the flour of the roasted barley grains that gave the gofio, a very nourishing dough that is still today the most typical dish of the Canary Islands. Fruit picking and coastal fishing were an important complement to their diet and more occasionally hunting (birds and small reptiles). The Canarian aborigines lived mainly in natural caves or volcanic tubes (Cenobio de Valerón in Gran Canaria), but there are also many testimonies of a habitat built on the surface, especially in Gran Canaria and Lanzarote, such as the one that has been reconstructed in the Archaeological Park of the Cueva Pintada, in Gádar, Gran Canaria.Handicrafts and rock paintings
These peoples are described as belonging to the Neolithic period, as they were unaware of the use of iron, which was absent from these islands. This did not prevent them from producing formidable weapons: wood, carved stones or spears - añepas - with a flame-hardened tip or extended by a sharp, tapered volcanic stone blade that made life hard for the first conquistadores, especially in Tenerife. Archaeological discoveries have also brought to light their ceramics and pottery, made without the help of a lathe, according to a technique still used today by the Berbers and still practiced in the Canary Islands. They also left numerous rock engravings such as spiral or geometric motifs found in several rock shelters in La Palma, in the Lomo de Los Letreros, and near Gáldar, in Gran Canaria. While similar petroglyphs are only found in some Western European cultures, other engravings from El Hierro and La Palma contain signs that tend towards a writing similar to those found in North Africa, but as yet undeciphered.
