The site, a late medieval garbage deposit, was discovered during excavations for a new underground car park in downtown Lagos, right outside the old city wall.

Soon, the archeologists on site realized they were uncovering an unparalleled mass burial of non-European individuals associated with Portugal's early slave trade. To date, no single mass burial site of enslaved sub-Saharan Africans has ever been discovered anywhere else in Europe. The site of "Valle da Gafaria" is the oldest burial site associated with the Atlantic slave trade ever discovered, worldwide.

The site was excavated by the Coimbra based Cultural Heritage consultancy company DRYAS, with support of biological anthropologists from the Anthropology Department at the University of Coimbra. They uncovered the skeletal remains of 158 African individuals, as well as several burials of local people associated with a nearby leprosarium. The human remains were brought to Coimbra where they are stored at a facility operated by DRYAS and are under continued research at the University of Coimbra.

The Lagos City Council signed a document with UNESCO, agreeing to create a Slavery Museum in the old Customs Building downtown, and a memorial at the burial site. However, the city moved on with the construction of the parking garage, which opened in July 2010. In 2014, the city allowed the construction of a mini-golf course on the roof of the new parking structure.

A brass plaque was mounted at the parking garage entrance, which explained the excavation of the leprosarium structure and mentioned in one brutal sentence that "remains with negroid features" were also found...

"Initially, the memorial, the museum, and a center for studies on slavery were planned," said Castro Henriques (representative of the UNESCO Slave Route Project), cited in Expresso in 2015. Soon after, the new "Slave Market" museum was established, but it barely mentions the site of Valle da Gafaria and its importance.

No memorial has been proposed or built to date.

The brass plaque at the garage was taken down in late 2024/early 2025, in response to the film "Tales of Oblivion", which pointed out its racist and violent language.

Since they had been transported to Coimbra, the human remains discovered at Valle da Gafaria have been under continuous study. First research described the site and it's unique context, as well as some preliminary genetic data which confirmed the African ancestry of the Lagos Ancestors (Martiniano et al. 2014). Another study described the intentional dental modifications many of the Lagos Ancestors have on their teeth (Wasterlain et al. 2016). Later, studies focused on the poor physical health of the Lagos Ancestors, which manifests in many ways in their skeletons, particularly in the children. Newest work uses isotope analysis to identify the African regions they had been kidnapped from (see CURRENT RESEARCH). You can find the titles and direct links to all scientific publications on Valle da Gafaria under the tab PAST RESEARCH.

According to a 2022 article, the City of Lagos is planning a memorial for the people found at Valle da Gafaria. Archaeologist and City Council Member Dr. E. Morán is cited stating "...but I hope that next year, a clearer project can be defined, and that the construction of this memorial will swiftly be completed…Furthermore, the matter of the memorial is one that everyone agrees on. [...]
As such, there is no one saying that it shouldn’t be built, or even a voice against it".

However, to our knowledge, no one from the African Diaspora or Afro-descendant communities in Portugal has been consulted about specific monument plans or about a strategy for determining the monument’s location and design.

More than 15 years after its discovery, the site of Valle da Gafaria remains largely invisible, despite its relevance to world history. But what about the human remains found there? What is happening to them? This is a question frequently raised by concerned community members. So far, the Ancestors are the focus of ongoing scientific research. One alternative would be to rebury the remains in the public park adjacent to the site, where they were discarded almost 400 years ago. Another way to honor these Ancestors would be to repatriate them to their native regions in West and west-central Africa. This would be a substantial undertaking, but new scientific techniques can provide information on each individual’s most likely region of origin in Africa.