Pyramids of Guimar

28.3192°N, 16.4082°W.

The Pyramids of Güímar on the eastern coast of Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain — a complex of six stepped pyramidal stone platforms built of locally quarried lava rock, conventionally dated by mainstream Spanish archaeology to the nineteenth century CE as the result of agricultural land clearance by Spanish colonists. The largest pyramid is approximately 12 metres tall on a base of 30 metres per side. The pyramidal interpretation was popularised by Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl in 1991, who argued that the structures' alignment with the rising sun on the summer solstice and the setting sun on the winter solstice could not be coincidental and proposed pre-Hispanic Guanche construction with possible Atlantic-crossing cultural connections to the Mesoamerican stepped-pyramid tradition. Mainstream Spanish archaeology, supported by stratigraphic excavation showing nineteenth-century pottery in the foundation courses, rejects the pre-Hispanic dating.

A complex of six lava-stone stepped platforms whose construction date is conclusively post-1830 by mainstream archaeology and pre-Hispanic by the Heyerdahl reading, with the solstice alignments unexplained by either interpretation.