The Humanities Campus will have a more modern Archeology center
The University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (ULPGC) It will have a new Archeology Center on the Humanities Campus, where the excellent collection of bones, ceramics and tools, with which it has been working since the 90s, can be located.
The center will be located in the Obelisk Campus and will have as a priority objective the development of archaeological research projects focused on the Canary Islands, and will act as a reference center for these investigations at the ULPGC.
The General Director of Cultural Heritage of the Government of the Canary Islands, María Antonia Perera Betancor, visited yesterday the place where the center is going to be built, which will improve the facilities of the current Archeology Laboratory of the Department of Historical Sciences of the ULPGC and will have the staff of the TARHA Research Group, coordinated by Professor Amelia Rodríguez. And in which researchers Jacob Morales and Jonathan Santana also collaborate.
The General Director of Cultural Heritage was accompanied by the acting Vice Chancellor for Culture and Society, Pino Quintana, and by Pedro González Quintero, Dean of the Faculty of Geography and History.
General Director María Antonia Perera, stressed that the Archeology Center "will be a reference center to lead research on the past of the islands, North Africa and other countries where Canarian researchers travel". "The analyzes that until now are carried out outside the Canary Islands, will now be centralized in this public university, enhancing specialization and lowering costs, by obtaining more results with a similar budget," he said.
Professor Amelia Rodríguez highlighted, for her part, that "we have a good collection of pieces from all over the world, from the Neolithic, El Hierro Age, hominids, tools and vessels", which thanks to the new center "will be accessible to researchers and it will be a catalyst for the development of archeology in the Canary Islands, allowing talent to be captured and facilitating the work of researchers ”. "We are very grateful to the General Directorate of Cultural Heritage for their support of this project," he said.
To locate the center, the ground floor of the old IES Santa Teresa de Jesús building will be rehabilitated, given by the Autonomous Community of the Canary Islands to the ULPGC, for which the Ministry of Culture will provide a grant of 180,000 euros.
The new space will allow analysis of the pieces, which are now sent abroad
The ULPGC already has the architectural project of the Archeology Center and is now awaiting the tender for the execution of the work. The construction management and the adaptation of the facilities will be the responsibility of the ULPGC's Directorate of Works and Infrastructures.
Those responsible for the architectural project are Rafael Miranda, ULPGC's works and services coordinator, and Jaime Rodríguez Gil, who has designed the project with the collaboration of Meritxell Álvarez. For his part, the engineer Francisco Martín will adapt the planned facilities.
The new infrastructures will allow to improve the endowment of the old Archeology Laboratory and develop analytics that at this time must be sent to other laboratories abroad or the Peninsula. There will be a laboratory for the processing of stable isotopes of archaeological samples, which allows to know aspects about the diet of people and animals, or if the plants were irrigated and fertilized, for example. It will also house the microscopy laboratory, used to study archaeological material and learn about the petrographic composition of ceramics, mortars or rocks; the traces of use of instruments of all kinds; identify woody species, seeds and fruits, or insects that are documented in archaeological sediments in addition to many other applications.
There will also be a laboratory for the processing of archaeological materials and sediments. In addition, it will have a large work room and a warehouse.
Likewise, the ULPGC makes available to the Archeology Center the teaching and research staff and technical laboratory specialist staff assigned to the Department of Historical Sciences, so that it is linked to the ULPGC Center of Archeology.
