Free Republic

History books tell us that Portuguese navigators found the Azores islands uninhabited in the middle of the Atlantic during the early 1400s. But some intriguing constructions suggest that people occupied this area long before.So, who was this civilisation, and why did they leave?Was the Azores home to an ancient civilisation? | Next Stop Stories | BBC Reel | October 28, 2022

The islands’ pioneers likely arrived centuries before European conquest, as part of a large-scale movement of people from North Africa. Today the Canary Islands are a tourist hub, a volcanic archipelago with palm trees and azure beaches, located off the coast of Morocco and governed by Spain. But the history of this paradise is marred by the brutal conquest, enslavement and treatment of its indigenous people by European colonizers beginning around the 15th century. Although scientists know a fair bit about the fate of the islands’ original inhabitants, much is unknown about their origins. Some scholars have debated whether the...

Something You Didn't Know About Louisiana (Ilenos, Canary Islands) Intersurf.com Gilbert C. Din/Sidney Villere ISLENOS, CANARY ISLANDS The archipelago of the Canaries consists of seven main islands, having a total area of less than 6 percent of the size of Louisiana, lying about sixty-five miles west of Morocco in Northern Africa. They were formed as a result of volcanic activity. It is a rugged, mountainous terrain, and plains are almost nonexistent. Lack of water is a serious problem. The westernmost islands receive the most rain, while the two islands closest to the Sahara Desert and lower in elevation have some...

ISLENOS, CANARY ISLANDS The archipelago of the Canaries consists of seven main islands, having a total area of less than 6 percent of the size of Louisiana, lying about sixty-five miles west of Morocco in Northern Africa. They were formed as a result of volcanic activity. It is a rugged, mountainous terrain, and plains are almost nonexistent. Lack of water is a serious problem. The westernmost islands receive the most rain, while the two islands closest to the Sahara Desert and lower in elevation have some deserts. The higher elevations on some of the western islands have pleasant temperatures, and...

The Egyptian vulture population of the Canary Islands was established following the arrival of the first human settlers who brought livestock to the islands. A genetic comparison of Iberian and Canarian birds, published in the open access journal BMC Evolutionary Biology, found that the Egyptian vulture population in the Canary Islands was likely established around 2500 years ago – around the same time as humans began to colonise the islands. Rosa Agudo worked with a team of researchers from the Doñana Biological Station, Seville, Spain, to investigate genetic and morphological changes between 143 Iberian birds and 242 from Fuerteventura, one...

A Spanish Senate committee wants Madrid's Anthropology Museum to return remains of a member of the Canaries' aboriginal Guanche people which arrived in mainland Spain in the 1700s, said Rafael Gonzalez, of Tenerife's Museum of Nature and Man... Gonzalez, the Tenerife museum's head of archaeology, was not sure when the Madrid mummy would return. But he told Reuters he wants the Canary Islands to recover all remains of the Guanches -- a people related to North African Berbers who were conquered by Spaniards in the 15th century. "We want mummified remains of indigenous Canary people to come home. We don't...

WHEN THOR HEYERDAHL died in April, the mass media fell oddly mute. Some readers told me that they learned of the great Norwegian explorer’s death only a week later, by reading my eulogy on the Internet. Such apathy seems hard to fathom. Every schoolboy once read Kon-Tiki and dreamed of conquering the waves as Heyerdahl had done. Perhaps, imbued with the modern philosophy of "safety first," today’s journalists no longer wish to encourage such dreams. Media apathy has likewise greeted Dominique Goerlitz – Heyerdahl’s apprentice and heir apparent. On July 20, this 35-year-old German schoolteacher landed in Alexandria, Egypt, after...