Gran Canaria cave served as food storage before becoming burial site
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Archaeologists studying a cave in Gran Canaria, Spain, determined that Indigenous people used the Cruz de la Esquina cave to store grains between the 7th and 9th centuries AD before converting it into a burial site.
The researchers examined over 8,000 preserved insect remains within the cave to understand how the space was used over time. They discovered a large number of storage pests, indicating significant quantities of grains were once kept there.
This discovery challenges earlier theories about burial practices in the Canary Islands, which proposed that bodies were left to decompose in the sun before being placed in caves. Instead, the insect evidence suggests that people buried corpses shortly after death. Little is known about the culture of the Indigenous people of the Canary Islands before the Spanish conquest in the 15th century, making this information particularly valuable.
The team hopes to expand their research to other caves on Gran Canaria to see if Cruz de la Esquina represents a broader pattern of land use. They believe that studying insect remains, a field known as archaeoentomology, can reveal new details about archaeological sites and how they changed over time.
