Basque Origins | DNA, Language, and History

Basque

origins

dna

language

and identity from the Spanish and French valleys of the Western Pyrenees to the Atlantic coast of the Bay of Biscay the historically isolated Basque people have lived for millennia in this diverse and fertile region the Basques have preserved their uniqueness not indo- the

language

and the European Ayushkara dialects, as well as their own cultural and regional identities, as the surrounding populations of Europe have changed over the centuries again and again, the Basque people continue to be known today by their inhabitants as Euskadi Pais Bosco el The Basque Country has become a region famous for its cuisine and wine from ancient grapes such as Tempranillo, traditional fishing villages and picturesque cities.

Tourism has replaced much of the conflicts of

history

, but defining usgaleria is as difficult as defining the word heria itself in ayushkara its heady root can mean everything from village to population to nation. an uscaleria is the collective identity of this ancient people the prehistoric

basque

country the franco-cantabrian region was an oasis of life during the last glacial maximum one of the most densely populated glacial refuges in europe, but this land is dense not only in flora and fauna but The very

history

of the Basque Country has been the scene of countless significant historical events from prehistory to the present day and home to crucial archaeological discoveries, including Neolithic dolmens and burial sites, and the famous oldest known European cave paintings, such as the representations of paleolithic megafauna in the lasko caves the first evidence of the arrival of modern humans in the north of the iberian peninsula dates back to approximately 40,000 BC.

C. Stone tools and Neolithic ceramics reveal many details of their lives. The discovery of geometric microelements, such as small heavy leaves, trace the expansion of Homo sapiens, in this case from France to Spain, but the Neanderthal populations were not alone in the south of the iberian peninsula at this time are well documented specifically south of the ebro river but curiously there have been no discoveries of modern humans south of the ebro until thirty-four thousand to thirty-two thousand BC. C., between six and eight thousand years after its arrival in the region, the river appears to have formed a natural border that divided Homo sapiens from Homo neanderthalensis for millennia.

Imagine living in a world where a wide river separated its people from a completely different species. or subspecies of humans in the memory of their people had always been like that the other had always existed and that world persisted for thousands of years what kind of territorial behavior did that shape in our ancestors waves of early humans claimed the region keeping it so densely populated As always we know a small but growing amount about these early peoples, most are named after their industries, mainly stone tools and the various ways they created them in succession, this region saw peoples known as Mustarians and Oregon nations. who emerged from elsewhere and introduced their technologies to the Iberian Peninsula, but other peoples originating from this region, such as the Soybean Train and the Azillians, spread their contributions everywhere, especially the nomadic Magdalenians who emerged about 17,000 years ago and they covered almost all of Europe, according to some.

The archaeological discoveries of agriculture and livestock seem to have taken root late in the Basque Country, arriving around 8000 BC. C. The first animals found in their burials are companion dogs, but in later excavations the remains of oxen, pigs and varieties of sheep and goats have also been found. Hundreds of dolmens and megaliths cover the landscape, many of them on hilltops and ridges, some are mass burial sites, others appear to have religious significance and others do not, perhaps serving only for storage or shelter, some also denote boundaries that delimit the territory of different tribes, a 2004 DNA. A study published in Oxford Academic deduced past admixture processes in the European population from genetic diversity at eight loci, including autosomal mitochondrial and Y-linked polymorphisms.

This study , which attempted to characterize the largest European genetic families, needed comparison samples from premodern peoples. They discovered that the Basques could be used as a modern genetic substitute for Neolithic populations along with some other isolated populations from North Africa, Sardinia and the Near East. In 2013, a mitochondrial DNA study published in PLOS ONE traced the female genetic lineages of the Franco-Cantabrian region and found that 35 percent of them were pre-Neolithic, suggesting that the autonomous populations currently inhabiting this region show perceptible signs of genetic continuity with Mesolithic groups of hunter-gatherers who took refuge in the Franco-Cantabrian belt during the last glacial and postglacial periods of Europe.

A 2015 DNA study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences addressed the

origins

of eight human skeletons found in the El Portalón cavern in Atapuerca, northern Spain. They were Neolithic farmers who lived between 1500 and 3500 BC, but their genes were mixed with those of the locals. Stone Age hunters, this unique mixture was compared to the populations of modern Europeans and looked more like today's Basque population, but that only caused more debate. The findings contradicted evidence that agriculture had a late start in the Basque country, as these authors suggest that the Basques and their language may actually be related to the initial expansion of agriculture in Europe.

The authors were also surprised to learn of the similarity between early Iberian farmers and the Basques because it challenged the consensus that the Basques have existed unchanged since the Neolithic, their language being a supposed relic of the pre-agricultural diversity of languages ​​found in ancient times. Europe are not as isolated as we thought, this leads to several possible scenarios: first, that Indo-European languages ​​may have arrived earlier or later, depending on whether competing linguistic hypotheses from Anatolia or in passing may have arrived earlier or later. Secondly, it is true that Indo-European languages ​​may have reached Western Europe more than once with a second wave that coincided with the Yamnian and Corded Ware cultures and, thirdly, if the Basques are truly descendants of these Iberian farmers, It is possible that their language may be distantly related to Sardinia, where it was spoken, a possible connection with the pre-Roman Paleo Sardinian language.

Archaeologists have discovered Sardinian artifacts in the Basque Country, but that's all the evidence, apart from some tantalizing linguistic commonalities that exist. A 2017 DNA study published in Plos Genetics brought up this idea. Focusing further, they discovered that the footsteps of invaders and migrants that reshaped the rest of Europe throughout much of its history in successive waves occurred much less in the Iberian Peninsula. The Portuguese and Basque samples were found to be largely unchanged since the Neolithic, as the authors noted. Unlike further north, a mixture of earlier languages ​​and Indo-European languages ​​persists until the dawn of Iberian history, a pattern that resonates with the actual but limited influx of immigrants around the Bronze Age.

Basque culture and language, the Basque country, historically, has been made up of settlements located along the western edge of the Pyrenees, currently organized into seven provinces on the southern side of the Pyrenees and superhero la purdie and nafarawa on the northern side. Euskara has five main dialects an isolated non-Indo-European language with no close relationship to any other existing language Euskara is spoken by almost 30 percent or three quarters of a million Basques the vast majority are in the Spanish region only seven percent are In the French part the French dialects are Navar La Portien and Sulatan and the Spanish dialects are Upper Navar Biscayne and Gipuskow In these dialects they are sometimes mutually incomprehensible, especially in the case of Sulatan, studies suggest that these dialects were derived from one language unified Basque at some point during the Middle Ages and developed according to geographical, cultural, political and administrative reasons, although structurally different from any Indo-European language, the official Bachua Basque today contains many loanwords from Romance languages ​​up to 40 percent of its vocabulary and a modified Latin script The mystery of Euskara's long linguistic isolation has led to many theories about its origins and possible related languages.

Most of these hypotheses are very tenuous, such as Iberian Basque comparisons based on fragments of extinct variations of Aquitaine and Iberian Basque languages. or are based on pseudoscientific coincidences and speculation ranging from the popular claim that the Basques descend from the Old Testament patriarchs, to popular beliefs that the Basques are related to the distant Kartvalian populations of the Caucasus, Georgia, to a slightly more Plausible with the ancient Chechen languages, neighbors of the Georgians, whose linguistic structure seems closer to Ayuskara, these models of Caucasian Danae language families could mean that the Basques and their ancestors originated in the Caucasus, but only the latter Genetic studies of modern Basque samples have reached clear conclusions, we will get to them in a minute.

The first documents of the Spanish anthropologist and author Julio Karo Baroja described the Basque territory as divided into two, a mountainous area and a flat area, for him historians and ancient geographers clearly believed that the territory of the Basques included two very different areas. To the south, along the Ebro River, there was the flattest land suitable for the cultivation of cereals, which in a text by Tito Livius is at least known by the name of Aguer. vasconum but apart from this area, which is the first known and referred to by the Romans where there were several important population centers, the Basques occupied a completely different territory known as jumps vasconum, the word saltus gives an idea of ​​a land of forests, pastures , forests and to a certain extent monstrous areas, so the Basques were present in an area between the banks of the Ebro River passing through the Agar to the shores of the ocean and up to the snowy peaks of the Pyrenees passing through the Saltus which was the Mostly waves of mostly Celtic immigrants invaded and settled in the Iberian Peninsula over time including the Belgae as Julius Caesar called them and the ancestors of the Gauls, many of them became known as Iberian Celtic tribes and were Described by classical authors in great and sometimes contradictory detail livies is the oldest record that mentions the tribes and at the same time describes the Sartorian War of 76 BC.

C. says that they left the city of Calagurus Nasika and crossed the Ebro River to enter the high regions of the Basque tribe. From there they entered the territory of their neighbors, the Baroness. The Basques lived on the slopes of the Western Pyrenees and among the lowlands. from the Bay of Biscay, where the current cities of Aragon, Navarre and northeastern Rioja are located, their name Vascones evolved into the word Vascones, although Vascones are not exclusive to the Vascones and there is no direct evidence that the Basques themselves were related to current events. Basques nor that the language they spoke is related to Euskara, many other major and minor tribes make up the entire Basque country, especially the northern tribe of the Vascones, Caesar Aquatani attempted to classify the distinction between the Iberian Kelt tribes and the Aquatani, all of Gaul is divided into three parts, one of which the Belgians inhabit, the Aquitanians, another, and the third, those who are called Celts and we call Gauls.

All of these differ from each other in language, customs and laws. The Garonne River separates the Gauls. of the aquatani the romans called the land of the aquatani novem papulania or the land of the nine tribes and soon expanded it to include twelve the elusian capital the modern oz oversaw their presence in the region for four centuries they called the land of the vascons wasconia other important tribes included the varduli charistiai atriganese tarbelli and cantabri strabo the greek gave their name to the atriganias in their geography he called them alotrigonis a greek based word for strange people this could be an indication of how unique and contrary the protos were -

basque

s the very name vasconus suggests rough origins, whether mountain people or frontier people, although some prefer the interpretation of the pointed leaves or the tall ones before their conversion to christianity, these tribes worshiped their own gods, including a goddess named Mari and her consort Sugar, there were probably many more in their pantheon. but few details have survived their mythology was rich in witches who were often priestesses of mari lamiak nymphs in the rivers the mairu and gentle giants who built the dolmens along with pesky imps and wild werebears of the forests theThe persistence with which the Basques resisted the demands of their Roman, Christian and Islamic rulers may give an idea of ​​the success of their historical isolation.

Even the Visigoths at the height of their power, who claimed the Basque Country in the 5th century AD, were unable to hold on to it. They and their successors, the Franks, posted guards. the borders to at least protect themselves against the Basques they could not conquer them they became the Duchy of Cantabria in the south and the Duchy of Vasconia in the north nor did they remain loyal to the Visigoths or the Franks for an extended period of time a concerted effort by Charlemagne that began in 768 AD. to forcibly convert the pagan Basques centuries after most of Europe had already taken the cross, however, Umayyad accounts from the same period described the Basques on the northern border of al-andulus as pagan magicians who still They worshiped many gods.

So it appears that Charlemagne's success was limited in the most famous myth associated with his reign: it was at the Roncesvale Pass that Rudolf died fighting the Basque mountain tribes, as recounted by Charlemagne's court biographer Einhardt. , in his vita caroli magni while vigorously pursuing the Saxon War almost without interruption and having placed garrisons at selected points along his border, Charles marched into Spain in 778 with as large a force as he could mount, his army passing to across the Pyrenees and Charles received the surrender of all the cities and fortified places he found he returned to France with his army safe and sound, but high in the Pyrenees on that return trip he briefly experienced the Basques that place is so completely covered of a thick forest that is the perfect place for an ambush.

Charles's army was forced by the narrowness of the terrain to advance in a long line and it was in that high place on the mountain where the Basques laid their ambush. The Basques had the advantage. in this skirmish due to the lightness of their weapons and the nature of the terrain while the Franks were at a disadvantage due to the weight of their weapons and the unevenness of the terrain eggie hard the foreman of the king's table anselm the count of palace and roland The lord of the Breton march along with many others died in that skirmish but this fact could not be avenged at the time because the enemy had dispersed so much after the attack that there was no indication of where they could be found.

Many outsiders have tried to capture the heart of the Basque people and their country, but an inherent feeling remains. elusive mystery to them that millennia of conquerors have failed to overcome, they have remained stubbornly unknown and undisturbed even when they are not free, keeping their language and culture alive now with modern historical and historiographical tools along with archaeological discoveries and new technologies like these DNA and studies of isotopes The origins of the Basque people are finally becoming clearer. It is now accepted in historical and scientific records that the Basques have been living a solitary existence in their land for millennia, but this leads to another, more compelling question: how?

As all other nations have risen and fallen and almost all other tribes and nations have come and gone or at least been subsumed and mixed into larger genomic populations, how come the Basques and almost Basques alone have retained their identity? territory and its language? A new study according to genetic origins, uniqueness and heterogeneity of the Basques published in current biology is the Ayushkara language itself that could be the key to its permanence, delving into what they call a lively debate on the population history of the Basques, the authors analyzed the genetics of the Basques in relation to their language, their geography and the internal divisions of their dialects and provinces, their study is the latest in an investigation that began with a study in 1945 that discovered that a high percentage of Basques belonged to a rare group rhesus negative blood, which led to further investigations.

Over the years, the genetic uniqueness of the Basque population has been further identified, but modern authors have been no less contradictory than the classics. Some initial studies suggest that Basque populations are no more unique than any other European population. Other studies show a genetic difference between Spanish Basques. and French Basques, while other studies do not find any, but all were partial studies carried out with incomplete populations and insufficient techniques, such as the limits of uniparental genomes and the allelic frequencies of classic genetic markers in this latest effort carried out in the Basque country from France and Spain.

Genetic samples were taken from a variety of people in different provinces, many of whom spoke different languages. They sequenced these genomes to characterize six hundred thousand different markers, making their genetic study the most detailed exploration yet of the Basque genome by comparing these genomes with neighboring populations of Modern Europeans were able to create a much higher resolution picture of Basque genetics. They discovered that the Basques are in fact genetically unique and clearly separated from other European populations. Genetic samples from the Basques are the least similar to North African samples, but they still remain on the market.

The periphery of European haplotypes finds notable similarities with none other than Sardinia, but these similarities may not mean that Basques and Sardinians are related; It can only mean that in similar isolated island populations the results of inbreeding that these genetic markers suggest can lead to similar results, but the data from the populations known as peribasco sheds its own insights: these are the populations that live on the periphery of the country. Basque whose ancestors are a mixture of Basque and other Western European haplotypes, as the authors write, Basques share haplotypes exclusively with Frankish ingroups. -The Peribascans of the Cantabrian region share haplotypes mainly internally with the groups in the region, but also with the Spanish and French non-Franco-Cantabrian groups that act as a buffer zone between the Basques and the surrounding external populations.

The data suggest gene flow between the Franco-Cantabrian region. and these outgroups during the medieval and Renaissance eras on two very specific dates, one involving a small transfer of DNA and another large at these two points sometime between the 11th and 16th centuries AD, an event could have occurred that mixed These populations to a degree not seen before or since, estimates of effective population size based on these findings give the Basques low and stable values, while the Spanish and French populations grew from approximately a thousand generations ago. What these results indicate is a pattern of continued isolation and endogamy among the Basques in this study.

Modern Basque DNA was then also compared to ancient samples: the Basques most closely matched pre-Neolithic hunter-gatherers and European Neolithic farmers as in the 2015 study, but also indicated a connection to post-Neolithic shepherds of Caspian stepped Yamnian ancestry. Pontic, both Basque and Peri-Basque samples matched the least with samples from the Levant and Iran, but shared a little more with Anatolian farmers, but their models did not show a clear Basque genetic identity before the Iron Age, which which suggests that demographic influences in the relatively recent past, such as during Roman times. and the Islamic periods may have been the events that defined Basque identity but it was not the invasions of those people that changed Basque the genetic records of the Parabask show the impacts that those events suffered on them the conflicts between the Islamic troops and the kingdoms Christians to maintain their territories in the Iberian Peninsula, expanding from the supposed battle of Covadonga in 718 until the end of Iberian Islamic rule with the fall of the Nasrid kingdom of Granada in 1492, but for the Basques themselves the result was the opposite: they withdrew from some way in themselves it was the unique ability of the Basques to resist that external pressure that crystallized their linguistic culture and their genetics, and that resistance, the answer to the question of how it could be found in their unique Ayushkara language, the analysis revealed a remarkable microgeographic genetic structure and a clustering of Basque groups in each small town and city of the Basque country.

The authors discovered a tremendous breadth of diversity and heterogeneity within the Basque genome. They write that this genetic substructure is more complex than the orographic and administrative limits of the north. to the south between the present-day Spanish and French territories separated by the Pyrenees, haplotype-based methods allowed us to precisely define a central Basque group plus western and eastern Basque and peri-Basque genetic groups, clarifying previous results that barely suggested this pattern in the Franco-Cantabrian region through the use of classical markers and in each of those towns and villages a different version of Basque is spoken. Conclusions The model that seems to work best is the one in which the Basque language acts as a cultural barrier against the expansion of new languages. languages ​​and cultures the Romans did not get the tribes to speak Latin In the same way that first the Umayyads and then the Nasrids did not get them to speak Arabic, linguistic diversity coincides with the areas of greatest Basque identity, which means that these impenetrable local dialects They prevented a global language from surpassing them, but within their own culture they remain. an unbroken demand for independence, whether this is a greater fire burning in their hearts than that of the people of other tribes and nations or whether they are simply random survivors of history who increased their luck by retreating to the mountains again and again, never will really be known yet. still leave their mark on history were the Basque separatists in December 1973 who assassinated Admiral Carrero Blanco with a car bomb one of the key events that led to the end of fascist Spain and the continuing Basque separatist movements of today which It still remains unknown, however, what makes this language and this particular people so resistant to outsiders, DNA analyzes and linguistic models can correctly describe the coming and going of populations and the physical reality of events, how , but at least for now why the Basques have remained isolated when so many others have done so should not remain a mystery ooh