The event will be held on 23 September and will include a round table on the Cueva de Villaverde and the handover to the Cabildo of documentation from the first excavations
The Cabildo de Fuerteventura, through its Department of Cultural Heritage, will hold the event ‘Dolores Sánchez: memory and legacy of Fuerteventura archaeology’ on Wednesday, 23 September, paying tribute to one of the pioneers of archaeological research on the island. The event will take place at 7.00pm at the Fuerteventura Archaeological Museum and will include a round table on the Cueva de Villaverde and the handover of documentation from her first excavations.
The documentation, which had remained in the possession of Dolores Sánchez Velázquez, will be handed over by her family to the Cabildo de Fuerteventura following her death, with the aim of ensuring its conservation and study. The event will include the official signing of the handover, formalising the incorporation of these documentary archives into the island institution’s heritage collection.
The councillor for Cultural Heritage, Rayco León, stressed that “this event allows us to recognise the career of a woman who was a pioneer in the archaeology of Fuerteventura and, at the same time, to recover documentation that is fundamental to continuing to research and understand our heritage. We are very grateful to the family for their generosity and for making it possible for this legacy to be preserved and made available for future research. Preserving this legacy also means preserving the island’s history”.
The round table will address Dolores Sánchez’s professional career and her contribution to the island’s archaeology, the first excavation campaigns at the Cueva de Villaverde, the results of that work and its importance for archaeological research on Fuerteventura. It will also provide an opportunity to learn about the research carried out at the site since 2018 and the archaeological materials that now form part of the Archaeological Museum’s collection.
The event will feature the participation of the director of the Fuerteventura Archaeological Museum, Isidoro Hernández Sánchez; art historian and archaeologist Teresa Gómez Espinosa; archaeologist Ángel Sánchez Hortelano; archaeologist Rosa López Guerrero; and Antigua Sánchez Velázquez, representing the family.
Dolores Sánchez, a pioneer in the archaeology of Fuerteventura
Born in La Antigua in 1934, Dolores Sánchez Velázquez graduated in Geography and History, specialising in Archaeology, from the Complutense University of Madrid in 1979. She went on to spend much of her professional career at the Ministry of Culture, while maintaining her involvement in archaeological research on Fuerteventura.
Together with Professor Francisca Hernández, she co-directed the first systematic excavation campaigns at the Cueva de Villaverde, carried out between 1979 and 1983. Her work introduced new research methodologies and involved collaboration with specialists from various disciplines, including the first radiocarbon dating carried out on the island’s aboriginal contexts and materials.
The Fuerteventura Archaeological Museum currently holds the materials recovered during those campaigns, and the cataloguing process has so far identified 210 boxes and 3,004 bags of archaeological material.
