Elsevier

Quaternary International

Volumes 593–594, 20 August 2021, Pages 407-423
Quaternary International

Woodworking in the cliffs? Xylological and morpho-technological analyses of wood remains in the Prehispanic granaries of Gran Canaria (Canary Islands, Spain)

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2020.09.055Get rights and content

Abstract

Recovery and analyses of perishable non-charred archaeological wood is extremely rare. Traceological analyses in general are still scarce and mainly focused on waterlogged remains. Ancient desiccated wood from the Canary Islands offers an exceptional opportunity to identify the processes and techniques of the indigenous populations prior to the arrival in the 14th and 15th centuries AD of European colonists. This paper offers xylological and morpho-technological data linked to artefacts recovered in cliffside Prehispanic communal granaries in Gran Canaria (Canary Islands, Spain). The findings gleaned from a combination of xylological and traceological analyses are for the moment the first of their type of the archipelago's indigenous contexts. The data suggest the widespread exploitation of pine (Pinus canariensis) and fig tree (Ficus carica) and advances several analytical categories for wood artefacts and fragments. The identification and description of the different traces is followed by hypotheses as to the technical actions and the nature of the active edges of the stone tools. Thus, work-waste is identified and linked to several technical actions with the aim of reconstructing the chaînes opératoires. Moreover, further experimental research could offer a better understanding of the functions of these wooden artefacts.

Introduction

Archaeological knowledge is generally founded on durable materials such as stone, pottery and metal. Many authors have nonetheless warned that most of the material culture of the past consisted of perishable organic materials that are now missing from the archaeological record (Soffer et al., 2000a; Drooker, 2001; Hurcombe, 2008). The absence of these remains labelled by Hurcombe (2014) as ‘perishable material culture’ affects the understanding of past human behaviour and interpretation of ancient lifeways. Wood is one of these elements that was essential as it served for fuel, timber and crafts. The strategies of its procurement provide meaningful information as to ancient social organisation and early population perception of the environment (Alix and Brewster, 2004). Thus, woodworking involves a deep knowledge of the availability and the physical and mechanical properties of different species, factors that affected its strategies of selection (Caruso et al., 2015; Carrión-Marco and Vives-Ferrándiz, 2019; López-Bultó, 2020). Working wood was likewise an activity closely linked to cultural choices and traditional crafts (Beyries and Hayden, 1993).

The recovery of wood in archaeological contexts is extremely rare as it most often disappears through biodegradation processes provoked by fungi, bacteria and insects (Blanchette, 2000; Abdel-Azeem et al., 2019). Wood can nonetheless be preserved by charring, a process which allows identifying its anatomical structure (Chabal, 1988; Badal, 1992). However, these elements usually represent firewood remains as wooden artefacts and structural elements are only burnt during accidents or rituals (Carrión Marco, 2007; Martín-Seijo et al., 2015). This leads to a bias in the understanding of past wood procurement and processing that can be partially rectified by indirect studies such as functional analyses of stone tools (Hardy and Garufi, 1998; Dominguez-Rodrigo et al., 2001) or imprints of perishable materials in fired clay (Soffer et al., 2000b; Aura et al., 2019). These approaches nonetheless hardly reflect wood's vital role in past domestic, craftwork or funerary contexts leading to its underrepresentation in the archaeological record.

Wood remains preserved in arid or waterlogged conditions offer direct evidence of ancient woodworking (Caruso et al., 2015; Piqué et al., 2015; Solé et al., 2015; Rios-Garaizar et al., 2018; Carrión-Marco and Vives-Ferrándiz, 2019; López-Bultó, 2020). Traceological studies, mainly carried out on finds from waterlogged contexts, although scarce, are extremely valuable in determining manufacture processes and, more broadly, production and reproduction social relationships (Clemente-Conte, 2017). Considering this, the exceptionally well-preserved wood remains from the Canarian Prehispanic period serve to approach these issues in indigenous contexts. In addition, the extraordinary preservation of wood in the Canarian archipelago by desiccation has led to its classification into several categories that range from finished objects and tools to woodworking debris and undetermined fragments. This wide register serves to shed light, as noted by López-Bultó (2020), on the chaîne opératoire and not only on the final products.

The first inhabitants of the Canarian archipelago were agropastoral groups from North Africa (Maca-Meyer et al., 2004; Fregel et al., 2019). Although the exact moment and conditions of their arrival still remain unknown, AMS radiocarbon analyses of short-lived materials suggest a colonisation during the first millennium AD (Morales et al., 2017, 2018; Velasco-Vázquez et al., 2019). There is also evidence that the Berber colonists of the archipelago's different islands remained practically isolated from both the African mainland and themselves until the arrival of Europeans in the 14th-15th centuries AD, circumstances that yielded distinct island cultures.

It is important to note that, due to the volcanic origin of the islands, metal ores were not available. Artefacts therefore had to be fashioned with tools made of stone, wood, bone and other plant or animal materials. Although examples of knapped lithic tools are recorded throughout all of the archipelago, polished industry, limited exclusively to picks, is only present on the island of Gran Canaria. Two types of raw materials were used: obsidian and volcanic rocks such as basalt, phonolite and trachyte. In spite of the scarcity of traceological analyses, there is evidence of woodworking tools. Obsidian tools comprise for the most part small, rarely retouched, flakes characterised by sharp edges. The few known cases of this material served for scraping or splitting (Rodríguez-Rodríguez, 1998a; Naranjo and Rodríguez-Rodríguez, 2015). Volcanic rock tools reveal a greater variety as to size, morphology and coarseness. The larger unifacial or bifacial examples or larger retouched and non-retouched flakes served for chopping, sawing and scraping wood (Rodríguez-Rodríguez, 1993, 1998b).

Subsistence in Prehispanic Gran Canaria was based for the most part on a diet of cultivated plants such as barley (Hordeum vulgare), hard wheat (Triticum durum), lentil (Lens culinaris), fava bean (Vicia faba), pea (Pisum satisum) and fig (Ficus carica) (Morales et al., 2014, 2017; 2018). This diet was complemented by husbandry and the exploitation of marine resources (Velasco-Vázquez, 1995; Rodríguez-Santana, 1996; Castellano-Alonso et al., 2018; Parker et al., 2018). The development of agriculture in Gran Canaria led to adopting long-term storage strategies to combat unpredictable environmental changes that could lead to famine (Morales et al., 2018). Indigenous communal granaries were therefore common throughout Gran Canaria (Velasco-Vázquez et al., 2001). They consisted of groups of silos dug into the volcanic tuff generally in inaccessible settings such as cliff faces, mountains tops or easily protected fortified structures. These communal features offered excellent conditions of preservation not only for crop remains (Morales et al., 2014, 2018) but of the types of insects threatening the stocks (Henríquez-Valido et al., 2019, 2020) and other items such wood remains linked to silo management.

The aim of this study is therefore to delve into the question of wood procurement and use in the Prehispanic (c. AD 500–1500) communal granaries of Gran Canaria by means of xylological, morphological and technological analyses of the wood remains. This study pursues two main objectives. The first is to describe the raw material collected at each communal granary so as to shed light on wood exploitation and selection criteria. For this, we resorted to notions gleaned from narrative written sources and archival records penned after the Spanish Conquest describing wood use by the indigenous groups. Secondly, this study offers a preliminary technological approach to the wood remains by differentiating the marks stemming from their production from use-wear traces or postdepositional events.

Section snippets

Archaeological framework

The wood samples analysed in this study were collected from five different communal granaries on the island of Gran Canaria (Fig. 1). Factors playing a role in the selection of the samples were their state of preservation and if the sites could be safely accessed.

The granary of El Álamo, at 945 m a.s.l., forms part of a large complex of artificial caves carved in the volcanic tuff cliffside of the Acusa Plateau serving as dwellings and burials (Morales et al., 2014). The granary comprises two

Materials

The analysis focused on 386 pieces of wood from the five different communal granaries cited above: El Álamo (n = 31), Cenobio de Valerón (n = 2), Risco Pintado (n = 134), Cuevas Muchas (n = 114), La Fortaleza (n = 105). The wood from the different sites can be classified into three types: undetermined fragments (88.80%), woodworking debris (7.29%) and artefacts (3.91%).

Due to their desiccated state, no liquid was applied to clean them. This protocol consisted of light brushing with soft

Botanical identification

The taxa of 384 elements of the assemblage (99.5%) could be identified while the remaining two (0.5%) were fragments of bark. The study yielded evidence of at least 12 different taxa (Table 1): Pinus canariensis (Canary Island pine) (Fig. 4a and b), Juniperus sp. (savin) (Fig. 4 c), Ficus carica (fig tree) (Fig. 4 d-e), Pistacia atlantica (wild pistachio tree) (Fig. 4 f), Asteraceae (the aster family), Dracaena sp. (dragon tree), Lauraceae (the laurel family) (Fig. 4 g-h), Morella faya (faya, a

Prehispanic wood use based on historical written sources

The history of the colonisation, conquest and repopulation of the Canary Islands benefits from a series of irreplaceable sources in the form of narrative written sources as well as administrative and legislative documents. Although certain specific issues of ancient indigenous lifeways can be gleaned from these documents, they essentially provide information as to the indigenous population living at the moment of contact with European explorers. Moreover, in spite of the fact that the

Conclusions

The well-preserved Prehispanic desiccated wood remains from a series of granaries of Gran Canaria offer data as to the indigenous lifeways and their technological capabilities. The xylological data, on the one hand, offer significant clues as to the choice of raw materials. The evidence in the current case study indicates that the wood gathering strategies focused on species from the Thermo-Canarian and the Meso-Canarian bioclimatic belts. Moreover, the taxa of the assemblage suggest a

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Paloma Vidal-Matutano: Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal analysis, Investigation, Writing - original draft, Visualization. Amelia Rodríguez-Rodríguez: Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal analysis, Investigation, Resources, Writing - original draft, Visualization, Funding acquisition. María del Cristo González-Marrero: Investigation, Writing - original draft. Jacob Morales: Writing - review & editing, Funding acquisition. Pedro Henríquez-Valido: Writing - review & editing. Marco Antonio

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgments

The archaeological research of this study was funded by the Spanish Government project HAR2017-83205-P (MICINN-FEDER/EU). PVM is funded by the Spanish Government's Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness under a ‘Juan de la Cierva-Formación’ program (FJCI-2017-32461). JM is beneficiary of a Ramón y Cajal research fellowship funded by the Spanish Government (RYC-2015-18072). PHV is beneficiary of a Ph.D grant from Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. Our thanks also go to Rosario Méndez,

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    • Use of decayed wood for funerary practices: Archaeobotanical analysis of funerary wooden artefacts from Prehispanic (ca. 400–1500 CE) Gran Canaria (Canary Islands, Spain)

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      Nevertheless, xylological analyses of desiccated wood reveal different wood acquisition criteria. On the one hand, wood procurement for the fittings of the silos focused on pine and fig tree (Ficus carica), with lower proportions of other thermophylous and mesophylous species (Vidal-Matutano et al., 2020b). On the other hand, ongoing analyses of structural elements (doors, doorjambs, beams) and domestic wooden artefacts (containers, trays, tools) point out to the collection of a few species of the pine forest (pine), the laurel forest (Lauraceae, Morella faya and Visnea macaronera, species endemic to Macaronesia) and the thermophile forest (Phoenix canariensis -Canary Island palm-, Salix canariensis -Canary Island willow-, fig tree and Dracaena sp. -dragon tree-).

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