The mysteries of history

I am keenly interested in maritime history and the age of discovery, one small chapter of which involves the formal discovery of the North Atlantic island groups, the Canaries (discovered by Spain in 1402), the Azores (discovered by Portugal in 1427), Madeira (discovered by Portugal in 1418), and the Cape Verde Islands (discovered by Portugal in 1456), all clustered in the eastern North Atlantic between Iberia and West Africa.

Most of the islands had legendary sightings and occupations stretching back to the classical era but none were formally known until the Spanish, and more comprehensively, the Portuguese under Henry the Explorer began sponsored explorations of the world. There is archaeological evidence that Vikings may have visited Madeira sometime 900-1050 AD.

One aspect that has always fascinated me is that other than the Canaries (62 miles off the African coast), all the other island groups were uninhabited at the time of discovery. Relatively close to Europe and Africa, some hundreds of miles, and yet, with the transportation technology of the time, too far for permanent human occupation until the 1400s.

And what about the Canaries? Where did the aboriginal inhabitants come from? North Africa, Ireland, ancient Portugal, the Americas? North Africa was always the most logical and there has been decent evidence to support that supposition but the issue is little studied.

Now, from Genomic Analyses of Pre-European Conquest Human Remains from the Canary Islands Reveal Close Affinity to Modern North Africans by Ricardo Rodríguez-Varela, et al, there is a DNA study supporting a Berber/North African origin of the aboriginal inhabitants. From the abstract.

The origins and genetic affinity of the aboriginal inhabitants of the Canary Islands, commonly known as Guanches, are poorly understood. Though radiocarbon dates on archaeological remains such as charcoal, seeds, and domestic animal bones suggest that people have inhabited the islands since the 5th century BCE, it remains unclear how many times, and by whom, the islands were first settled. Previously published ancient DNA analyses of uniparental genetic markers have shown that the Guanches carried common North African Y chromosome markers (E-M81, E-M78, and J-M267) and mitochondrial lineages such as U6b, in addition to common Eurasian haplogroups. These results are in agreement with some linguistic, archaeological, and anthropological data indicating an origin from a North African Berber-like population. However, to date there are no published Guanche autosomal genomes to help elucidate and directly test this hypothesis. To resolve this, we generated the first genome-wide sequence data and mitochondrial genomes from eleven archaeological Guanche individuals originating from Gran Canaria and Tenerife. Five of the individuals (directly radiocarbon dated to a time transect spanning the 7th–11th centuries CE) yielded sufficient autosomal genome coverage (0.21× to 3.93×) for population genomic analysis. Our results show that the Guanches were genetically similar over time and that they display the greatest genetic affinity to extant Northwest Africans, strongly supporting the hypothesis of a Berber-like origin. We also estimate that the Guanches have contributed 16%–31% autosomal ancestry to modern Canary Islanders, here represented by two individuals from Gran Canaria.

So the Berbers have it. It of course raises new questions. How did they get to the Canaries? On purpose or by accident? If on purpose, what motive brought them? The Berbers, as far as I am aware, were not known for their maritime prowess. Was it Phoenicians who transported them? Did Berbers co-opt Phoenician sailing technology and transport themselves?

Questions for future research. The mysteries of history.