Before he began the conquest of the island in 1402 , Lanzarote was inhabited by Mahos or majos , people root Berber and North African origin who had arrived at the island around 500 BC. C. The indigenous name of the island is Tyterogakat or "Tytheroygatra" which has been translated as the burned using a geographic place name Berber Tuareg of Algeria center.
The majos. Who they were and where they came from
Although it has popularized the ethnonym " Guanche "as a nickname for all Aboriginal Canary , who inhabited the islands prior to their conquest , the fact is that, strictly speaking, that name would refer only to the natives of Tenerife . When the Genoese Lancelotto Malocello arrived in Lanzarote in the early fourteenth century, its inhabitants apparently called themselves majos as the ethnonym that has survived in the sources ethno historical or toponymy insular (Cueva de Los Majos, The Stone Majos, etc).
It is proven that the first inhabitants of the island, like the rest of Islands , North came from Africa , a geographical area that extends roughly from Tunisia to the coast Atlantic , and from the Mediterranean to the southern boundary of the desert Sahara , culturally and genetically entroncados people Berbers of the current Maghreb . For Lanzarote, there is a similarity in the type of habitat (called "deep house") with this in the Atlas East and other regions of Morocco . The rock carvings of the island are common to the rest of the Archipelago and northwest Africa, with a profusion of symbols podomorfos , also present at the tops of the Atlas and the Kabylia . Meanwhile, ceramics shows parallels with the Neolithic Saharan late. The adjective "nice" has been linked with the names of North African Berber tribes collected by Greek and Latin authors, such as maxios, Mazies and mauros . Finally, the phrases and words
