Presentation of the book “Vestigios de Sataute. El Patrimonio Arqueológico”

Details

📚 The Lola Massieu Hall, which belongs to the Department of Culture, will host the presentation of the book “Vestigios de Sataute. El Patrimonio Arqueológico” (Vestiges of Sataute. The Archaeological Heritage), a work by doctor and researcher Alex Hansen Machín, next Thursday, October 22 at 7:00 p.m. The publication is the result of fruitful research and outreach work that had its starting point in the exhibition of the same name organized by the Santa Brígida Town Council in collaboration with El Museo Canario. That exhibition marked the first milestone devoted exclusively to the aboriginal legacy of the ancient Tasaute, an unprecedented cultural event in Santa Brígida that is now captured and expanded in book form to ensure the preservation of local historical knowledge. The work of Alex Hansen, who holds a PhD in Geography from the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, highlights that Santa Brígida was a leading agricultural municipality with historical continuity. The discovery of an extraordinary number of mills demonstrates a first-rate cereal-based economy founded on wheat, barley, lentils, and peas, complemented by livestock farming and the development of an early pottery industry born of the need to store and preserve these products. Through its pages, readers can take a rigorous journey through around ten pre-Hispanic archaeological sites of great historical relevance. Among them stand out the Caves of La Angostura (an organized settlement that was the largest village of its time), as well as Cuevas del Gato, Los Frailes, El Tejar, La Atalaya, Los Silos, Lugarejos, and the emblematic Cuevas de los Canarios, historically used as granaries and dwellings. The book also documents aspects of the municipality’s prehistory, from architecture designed for storage and the rites linked to the sky and water, to the conception of life and the hereafter as manifested in the care of the dead, the finds after the Bandama eruption, and the place names that have survived to the present day.