Archaeologist · 1907–1987
Archaeologist
Archaeologist, teacher and ethnographer linked to Tenerife, author of Los Guanches: Vida y cultura del primitivo habitante de Tenerife and a central figure in twentieth-century Canarian archaeology.
Luis Diego Cuscoy developed a career between teaching, archaeology and ethnography. His work was especially linked to Tenerife and to the study of Indigenous Canarian societies, with publications such as Los Guanches: Vida y cultura del primitivo habitante de Tenerife, a work still used as a historiographical reference for Guanche culture.
His profile should be presented with nuance: alongside his archaeological production, academic sources highlight his teaching career, his interest in pastoralism and popular culture, and his insertion into the official excavation structures of the postwar period. Recent research has also analysed his career within the administrative and ideological framework of Francoism, so a purely celebratory reading should be avoided.
The Luis Diego Cuscoy archive, cited in studies of his work and deposited in the Archaeological Museum of Puerto de la Cruz, preserves documentation related to his professional activity. His legacy is relevant for studying how twentieth-century Canarian archaeology was constructed, both through his contributions to knowledge of the Indigenous past and through the methodological and institutional debates it raises.
