Las Palmas, May 10 (BNA) Archaeologists on the Spanish island of Gran Canaria are puzzled over the identities of the six young men whose face-down skeletons were found with their hands bound and covered with stones in a cliffside cave.
Evidence at the site of Caleta de Arriba points to a violent, centuries-old death that could date back to before the 15th-century Spanish conquest of the archipelago off northwest Africa.
“It was not a burial in the strict sense of the word… This is a funerary practice that signifies a very strong symbolic violence,” said Veronica Alberto, the head of the excavation, according to Reuters.
She told Reuters the bodies were forcibly placed on a rocky surface and then stones were thrown. Some had ligaments or ligaments on their limbs.
“It may be an indigenous burial, but due to the characteristics of the archaeological site, we need to expand it and consider that it could be from other periods after the conquest, from the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries,” Alberto added.
Without objects to help pinpoint the period, scientists are waiting for radiocarbon dating tests on the bones.
The archaeologists, who used security ropes while working in the steep terrain, said it was not an ordinary burial place because they had only found men. All six had strong arms, indicating that they participated in the same type of physical activity.
WWA