Prior to its conquest by the Spanish in 1402, the Canary Islands were home to a post-Neolithic culture living in a manner similar to Native Americans.
The only other late European culture living indigenous-style is the Sami—the reindeer herding, fishing, and hunting hut-dwellers of what is now northern Sweden, Norway, and Finland.
Known as the “Guanches”, the Canary Island natives lived a proper Stone-Age life, having migrated to the islands around 1000 BC. They wore animal skins, using spears and chiseled stone tools in their daily work. They worshiped nature deities, practicing their religion under what they considered sacred trees.
The Guanches were considered “Indians” by Christopher Columbus and the Spanish, as it was thought that the Canaries were the East Indies and the Caribbean Islands the West Indies.
The Guanches also developed a whistling language to communicate over long distances and mountains that Canary Islanders still know and use today. It’s considered a phonetic language, unintelligible to most, but containing rhythms and tone complexes that represent actual words.
It turns out the Canary Islanders may have a genetic link to the Berbers, light-skinned inhabitants of northern and Mediterranean Africa. Full circle— the Sami of Scandinavia have Berber blood too. Recent DNA analysis shows a link originating around 9,000 years ago.
But with their lack of technology and pre-conquest life style during the Middle Ages, the Guanches qualify as the last Stone-Age white culture on earth.
For more information on the Guanches:
Check out Gordon Kennedy’s book The White Indians of Nivara, The Untold Story of the Last Stone-Age Indo Europeans Tribes at his site WhiteIndians.com