Parque Arqueológico El Tendal
A Benahoarita site in the final stretch of the Barranco de San Juan, in the Los Galguitos district of San Andrés y Sauces, inside the Las Nieves natural park. Its core is a huge natural cave more than sixty metres wide that was lived in for at least two thousand years. Around it lie dozens of caves, three burial grounds and a small station of rock engravings, together with a visitor centre completed in 2019.
El Tendal spreads across both slopes of the last stretch of the Barranco de San Juan, in the municipality of San Andrés y Sauces in north-eastern La Palma. The complex takes in at least twenty-seven caves, open-air settlements that may have been shepherds' camps or huts, three burial grounds and a small station of rock engravings. The main cave, over sixty metres wide, offered exceptional living conditions and housed some twenty Benahoaritas. Excavation places human occupation of the site at more than two thousand years.
The site is one of the key sources for understanding the Benahoaritas, the aboriginal people of La Palma, their herding, their diet and their beliefs. The visitor centre beside the ravine, completed in 2019, displays original archaeological pieces alongside interpretive panels and interactive screens. It is reached from the LP-1 road near San Juan, and the walk leads down towards the floor of the ravine. Closed shoes are worth having, because the ground gets slippery after rain.
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