Food globalisation and indigenous agricultural resilience in the 15th-17th centuries AD: a case study from the Canary Islands - Archive ouverte HAL Accéder directement au contenu
Communication Dans Un Congrès Année : 2023

Food globalisation and indigenous agricultural resilience in the 15th-17th centuries AD: a case study from the Canary Islands

Résumé

The populations from the northwest of Africa that initially colonised the Canary Islands in the early centuries of the 1st millennium AD remained isolated until the arrival of European seafarers in the late 14th century AD. The earliest settlers were farmers who introduced a series of crops to the archipelago (barley, durum wheat, lentil, faba bean pea, and fig). Ultimately, after the European colonisation, new domesticated plants and animals began to arrive from Europe, Africa, and Americas. In order to delve into the question of the introduction of new crops, this study resorted to the archaeobotanical data from the site of Cruz de la Esquina, a cave-granary on the Island of Gran Canaria spanning both the pre-Hispanic and colonial periods. The aim is to evaluate the transformations in agricultural activities resulting from the new colonial rule and to assess the resilience of the indigenous populations. The study specifically focuses on the results gleaned from Silo 9, a storage room dating to the 15th-18th centuries AD. Among the artefacts was a large assemblage of plants preserved by desiccation: maize (Zea mays), cotton (Gossypium arboreum), and bottle gourd (Lagenaria siceraria). The direct radiocarbon analyses of maize samples place it in the 15th-17th century AD, presumably one of the earliest instances of this crop in the eastern Atlantic. The archaeobotanical results also suggest a continuity in the cultivation of the earlier crops (barley, durum wheat, lentil and fig) predating the arrival of the European colonists. The overall preliminary findings thus signal an early adoption of new crops as well as the continuity of certain traditional indigenous crops.
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Dates et versions

hal-04157484 , version 1 (10-07-2023)

Identifiants

  • HAL Id : hal-04157484 , version 1

Citer

Jacob Morales, Pedro Henríquez-Valido, Amelia Rodríguez, María del Cristo González-Marrero. Food globalisation and indigenous agricultural resilience in the 15th-17th centuries AD: a case study from the Canary Islands. International Workshop for African Archaeobotany 10, Jun 2023, Paris (MNHN), France. ⟨hal-04157484⟩

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