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The location, size, and structure of the farmlands and hydraulic systems built by the Indigenous inhabitants of Gran Canaria, Canary Islands, Spain, remain unknown. This hampers our ability to understand how they organized agricultural production and how European settlers transformed local landscapes to build commercial plantations in the late fifteenth century. This paper combines an analysis of archival sources with the study of agricultural landscapes and practices to identify and describe the fields that were employed by the first colonists of Agüimes and Temisas, and to derive information about the location, design, and management of the pre-Hispanic farmlands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes different forms of violence identified among the ancient Canarians, a population that settled an oceanic island and remained there, without regular external contacts, for more than a millennium. Specifically, we focus on a funerary deposit composed of 14 individuals with high rates of violence, in some cases of a lethal nature. The study uses forensic anthropology techniques to characterize the individuals' injuries. It also explores the chrono-cultural framework in which they were inserted for an historical explanation. The high frequency of individuals with evidence of violence, the features of traumatic injuries, and the radiocarbon data suggest an event of extreme physical violence. This episode appears to be linked to socioeconomic changes, including population growth, marked social differences, rivalry between groups, and competition for control of the resources in a small and diverse territory. The different patterns of violence identified among the skeletal remains in Gran Canaria serve to explore the nature of human relations over a prolonged period in an insular context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]