The Guanche were the indigenous inhabitants of the Spanish Canary Islands, located in the Atlantic Ocean some 100 kilometres (60 mi) to the west of modern Morocco and the North African coast.

[7] Genetic and linguistic evidence show that North African peoples made a significant contribution to the aboriginal population of the Canaries, notably, following desertification of the Sahara (post-6000 BC).

[8][9] Research into the genetics of the Guanche population has led to the conclusion that they share an ancestry with Berber peoples who immigrated from around Western Sahara.

[14] Archaeology of the Canaries seems to reflect diverse levels of technology, with items differing widely from the Neolithic culture that would have been encountered by the Spanish, at the time of their conquest.

Pliny the Elder, a Roman author and military officer drawing from the accounts of Juba II (ancient King of Mauretania), stated that a Mauretanian expedition to the islands, circa 50 BC, found the ruins of great buildings, albeit with no population to speak of.

[citation needed] Tenerife, specifically the archaeological site of the Cave of the Guanches in Icod de los Vinos, has provided evidence of habitation dating to the 6th century BC.

The Spanish gradually applied the term "Guanche" to the indigenous populations of all seven Canary Islands,[1] with those living on Tenerife being the most important or powerful.

[8][9] The first reliable account of the Guanche language was provided by the Genoese explorer Nicoloso da Recco in 1341, with a translation of numbers used by the islanders.

In 1878, Dr. René Verneau discovered rock carvings in the ravines of Las Balos that resembled Libyan[1] or Numidian script, dating from the time of Roman occupation or earlier.

An account of the Guanche population may have been made around AD 1150 by the Arab geographer Muhammad al-Idrisi in the Nuzhatul Mushtaq, a book he wrote for King Roger II of Sicily.

The only surviving version of this book, kept at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, and first translated by Pierre Amédée Jaubert, reports that, after having reached an area of "sticky and stinking waters," the Mugharrarin moved back and first reached an uninhabited Island (Madeira or Hierro), where they found "a huge quantity of sheep, which its meat was bitter and inedible".

[2][19][20] Mohamed Adikhari argues that the Canary Islands were the scene of "Europe's first overseas settler colonial genocide," and that the mass killing and enslavement of natives, along with forced deportation, sexual violence and confiscation of land and children constituted an attempt to "destroy in whole" the Guanche people.

There was a general belief in a supreme being, called Achamán in Tenerife, Acoran in Gran Canaria, Eraoranhan in Hierro, and Abora in La Palma.

In times of drought, the Guanches drove their flocks to consecrated grounds, where the lambs were separated from their mothers in the belief that their plaintive bleating would melt the heart of the Great Spirit.

Among the cultural events are significant traces of aboriginal traditions at the holidays and in the current Romería Relief in Güímar (Tenerife) and the lowering of the Rama, in Agaete (Gran Canaria).

In Gran Canaria there is currently a debate on the true nature of the mummies of the ancient inhabitants of the island, as researchers point out that there was no real intention to mummify the deceased and that the good conservation of some of them is due rather to environmental factors.

In Tenerife and Gran Canaria, the corpse was simply wrapped up in goat and sheep skins, while in other islands a resinous substance was used to preserve the body, which was then placed in a cave difficult to access, or buried under a tumulus.

[34] Bethencourt Alfonso has claimed that goat kids were tied by the legs, alive, to a stake so that they could be heard bleating by the gods.

[34] As for human sacrifices, in Tenerife it was the custom to throw a living child from the Punta de Rasca at sunrise at the summer solstice.

Guanches wore garments made from goat skins or woven from plant fibers called Tamarcos, which have been found in the tombs of Tenerife.

Beads of baked earth, cylindrical and of all shapes, with smooth or polished surfaces, mostly colored black and red, were fairly common.

Guanche weapons adapted to the insular environment (using wood, bone, obsidian and stone as primary materials), with later influences from medieval European weaponry.

U6b1 is found at very low frequencies in North Africa today, and it was suggested that later developments have significantly altered the Berber gene pool.

About 15% of their West Eurasian maternal lineages are specific to Europe and the Near East rather than North Africa, suggesting that the Benahoaritas traced partial descent from either of these regions.

It was suggested that the U6 was brought to North Africa by Cro-Magnon-like humans from the Near East during the Upper Paleolithic, who were probably responsible for the formation of the Iberomaurusian culture.

[41] It was also suggested that the maternal haplogroup H1, also frequent among Guanches, was brought to North Africa during the Holocene by migrants from Iberia, who may have participated in the formation of the Capsian culture.

They were determined to be carriers of Early European Farmer (EEF) ancestry, which probably spread into North Africa from Iberia during the Neolithic, or perhaps also later.

The Kelif el Boroud were thus determined to have carried 50% EEF ancestry, which may have spread with the Cardial Ware culture from Iberia to North Africa during the Neolithic.

[48] In a 2020 review Fregel et al. identified European Bronze Age ancestry in the Guanches, which could be explained by "the presence of Bell-Beaker pottery in the North African archaeological record," as well as observing a certain admixture "possibly related to trans-Saharan migrations".

It detected that Canarian DNA shows distinctive genetics, resulting from variables such as the geographical isolation of the islands, environmental adaptations and the historical mixture of Pre-Hispanic population of the archipelago (coming from North Africa), with European and Sub-Saharan individuals.