Origin of the basques (revisit)

Tabaccus Maximus said:

Now that everyone has had time to digest the latest Mesolithic La Brana (C-V20 + U5), I thought it would be a good time to revisit Basque origins based on what we have learned about Mesolithic Europe, especially Spain...


MESOLITHIC.................................................... EUROPEANS BASQUES

NO R1B .........................................................ALMOST ALL R1B (M269, P312)

LACTOSE INTOLERANT .................................. UNIVERSAL LACTASE PERSISTENT

VERY DARK HUE ...............................................OLIVE TO LIGHT SKIN

DARK HAIR.................................................................. VARIED

U4, U5, U8 .................................................... H1, H3, H5, SEVERAL U'S AND *'S

BRUTE .........................................................................GRACILE

HIGHLY LONG HEADED ...................................SHORT TO MESOCEPHLIC HEADED

LONG FACED ..............................................................SHORT FACED

BLUE EYES (poss)........................................ VARIED (BLUE, GREEN, HAZEL, BROWN)



In my mind, it has become increasing clear that Basques do not represent a relict of old Europe.
Anyone believe they are in some way a relict population?

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ElHorsto said:

Indeed they don't seem very much relic. They seem to have a similar history like Sardinians with just a little bit more HG and also a bit bronze-age admix. Here is again the autosomal table from Lazaridis et al. La Brana was close with Loschbourg in the WHG cluster of the PCA plot. I have sorted the table by WGH:

	EEF	WHG	ANE
Estonian	0.322	0.495	0.183
Lithuanian	0.364	0.464	0.172
Icelandic	0.394	0.456	0.15
Belorussian	0.418	0.431	0.151
Scottish	0.39	0.428	0.182
Norwegian	0.411	0.428	0.161
Ukrainian	0.462	0.387	0.151
Orcadian	0.457	0.385	0.158
English	0.495	0.364	0.141
Czech	0.495	0.338	0.167
French	0.554	0.311	0.135
Croatian	0.561	0.293	0.145
Basque	0.593	0.293	0.114
Hungarian	0.558	0.264	0.179
French_South	0.675	0.195	0.13
Bergamo	0.715	0.177	0.108
Sardinian	0.817	0.175	0.008
Bulgarian	0.712	0.147	0.141
Tuscan	0.746	0.136	0.118
Pais_Vasco	0.713	0.125	0.163
Albanian	0.781	0.092	0.127
Spanish	0.809	0.068	0.123
Greek	0.792	0.058	0.151
Ashkenazi	0.931	0	0.069
Maltese	0.932	0	0.068
Sicilian	0.903	0	0.097

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Tabaccus Maximus said:

Good points. Here's something that crossed my mind while looking at the Near East and Transcaucasus the last several weeks.

I believed until recently that Basques were a hybrid population consisting of R1b (Indo-European speaking men), Native (Basque speaking women), with time and founder effects working strongly in a endogamous population.

I have now wondered if the Basques are in fact a more uniform population that migrated as a whole, rather than being a recent composite.

There are several peculiarities [muliti-disciplinary] of the Basque/Iberians that I think may betray their origins if they were a uniform population prior to their current state.

1) Ergative-Absolute, Agglutinative language with typological similarities of proto-Kartvelian in the Southern Caucasus.

2) Very high R1b (M269) & H1, H3, H5. (I believe this could be indicative of [a type of Uruk-ized population], in the Southern Caucasus.
a) I'll point out again, that H3 and H5 have been found in Halafian and Ubaidian contexts.
b) I'll point out again, that the supposed H* samples taken from Paleolithic cave floors in Spain are extreme outliers and do not conform to what is known from Paleolithic and Mesolithic Europe and does not fit any 'LGM expansion' scenario.
c) The spread of H1 and H3 in North Africa likely came from the Near East with R1b-V88, not Magdalenian Spain!
d) The appearance of Beaker Culture (in which these uniparental markers rule) was an abrupt change in techology, material culture, burial patterns and religious beliefs from the native population in Spain.

3) Somewhat limited re-constructed mythology featuring Mari and Maju who appear very, uh hum, Caucasian IMHO.

I would postulate, that Uruk-ized, Ergative-Absolutive-Agglutinative, Caucasian natives were possibly flushed from the Causcasus during the slow build-up of the Yamnaya Culture, north of the Caucasus. Or perhaps, they were part of a larger advanced techological horizon that spead from the Caucasus and Yamnaya about the same time?
Beginning in approximately 3300 b.c. and culminating in 2900 b.c., native, Uruk-ized Caucasian peoples of the Northern and Trans-Caucasus flooded into the Near East.
Call it the Trans-Caucasian reflux theory.

When you look at the Ergative-Absolutive-Agglutinative peoples in the Near East at that time, ie. Hattians, Hurrians, Sumerians, they seem to appear in areas where other people had lived before. The Hurrians are easier to place in the South East Caucasus initially and the short-headed Sumerians only appear in Mespotamia around 3100 b.c., probably in the Jemdet Nasr period. The Hattians were replaced by the Hittites, but the Hattians themselves may have replaced an earlier Indo-European substrate.

If people were leaving or being flushed out of the Caucasus and North Black Sea about this time, I suppose one of those could be the Kemi-Oban people.
Maybe the first Indo-Europeans in Western Europe came as a result of these "Yamnaya" upheavals and were always seperate linguistic categories.

Does it strike anyone odd that the two languages that are spoken in Western Europe are:
1) An Ergative-Absolutive-Agglutinative language with some typological similarities to proto-Kartevelian
2) A Centum language

??

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ElHorsto said:

Indeed they don't seem very much relic. They seem to have a similar history like Sardinians with just a little bit more HG and also a bit bronze-age admix. Here is again the autosomal table from Lazaridis et al. La Brana was close with Loschbourg in the WHG cluster of the PCA plot. I have sorted the table by WGH:

	EEF	WHG	ANE
Estonian	0.322	0.495	0.183
Lithuanian	0.364	0.464	0.172
Icelandic	0.394	0.456	0.15
Belorussian	0.418	0.431	0.151
Scottish	0.39	0.428	0.182
Norwegian	0.411	0.428	0.161
Ukrainian	0.462	0.387	0.151
Orcadian	0.457	0.385	0.158
English	0.495	0.364	0.141
Czech	0.495	0.338	0.167
French	0.554	0.311	0.135
Croatian	0.561	0.293	0.145
Basque	0.593	0.293	0.114
Hungarian	0.558	0.264	0.179
French_South	0.675	0.195	0.13
Bergamo	0.715	0.177	0.108
Sardinian	0.817	0.175	0.008
Bulgarian	0.712	0.147	0.141
Tuscan	0.746	0.136	0.118
Pais_Vasco	0.713	0.125	0.163
Albanian	0.781	0.092	0.127
Spanish	0.809	0.068	0.123
Greek	0.792	0.058	0.151
Ashkenazi	0.931	0	0.069
Maltese	0.932	0	0.068
Sicilian	0.903	0	0.097

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Sile said:

so that's how Ftdna PF states me on the border of France and Italy

me
EEF 69.21
WHG 20.20
ANE 10.59

EEF = french_south or Bergamo
WHG = french_south
ANE = Bergamo

Doug is ahead of his time

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Tabaccus Maximus said:

In my mind, it has become increasing clear that Basques do not represent a relict of old Europe.
Anyone believe they are in some way a relict population?

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ElHorsto said:

All interesting points which I can not comment all due to lack of knowledge, in particular linguistic.
There is one argument against Caucasian origin in that Basques are among those europeans who carry the least "Caucasus" admixture in terms of Georgian-like, etc. But they have that "Gedrosian" admixture which is very certainly a late introduction because it is absent in all neolithic and paleolithic samples of that time in west europe. So yes, something strange and somewhat exotic happened to west europe and Basque country in particular. Gedrosian is strong nowadays in Caucasus too, but the problem is that it's always entangled with "Caucasus" admixture there. I still think it is possible that Basques came from the region somewhere south of Caucasus, namely at a time where Gedrosia was yet "pure" there (if it really was there, just speculation). The Sumerian language is an isolate like basque, and some scholars linked Basque to Sumerian, although it was not accepted by the mainstream. Maybe the emergence of semitic languages around 3500 BC was accompanied by the merger and spread of "Caucasus" and SW-Asian/afroasiatic which diluted the assumed aboriginal "Gedrosian"-like peoples in that region. Maybe the proto-Basques escaped to Iberia before that happened. Place of R1b-origin would also roughly match this scenario, which would open a competing story to the Indo-European-R1b story.

Another competing theory I once read in another forum where I think 'Polako' issued the idea that Iberians and Basque R1b came from Minoans from Crete and today Basques mostly descend from ancient population of the east mediterranean, before it got admixed by other peoples. There is indeed some old R1b in Crete today. Another hint is Bull worship in both, Minoan civilization and today Iberians/Basques. Problem is that "Gedrosian" is too weak today in Crete, but who knows how it was 7000 years ago. Maybe ancient Minoans were more West-Asian-Gedrosian than the subsequent Greeks.

Interesting is also to note that the EEF/WHG/ANE table shows that ANE for 'Pais_Vasco' is higher than in all neighbouring countries incl. Italy, despite we know that ANE as well as K12b_Gedrosian (ANE and "West_Asian" admixtures are related and do overlap) was absent in West Europe before Bronze age. It would be revealing to know whether that elevated Basque ANE came along with more EEF or rather with more WHG.

That being said I'm still rather inclined towards a IEan source of ANE/Gedrosian in Basques, because Gedrosian_K12b was not confirmed anymore in Basques by Lazaridis et al admixtures (but still confirmed "West-Asian" for other west europeans), but ANE was still very strong. That would hint towards an influx from the north-east to Basque contry.
Basques remain mysterious.

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ElHorsto said:

There is one argument against Caucasian origin in that Basques are among those europeans who carry the least "Caucasus" admixture in terms of Georgian-like, etc.

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Tabaccus Maximus said:

Now that everyone has had time to digest the latest Mesolithic La Brana (C-V20 + U5), I thought it would be a good time to revisit Basque origins based on what we have learned about Mesolithic Europe, especially Spain...


MESOLITHIC EUROS.............................. BASQUES

NO R1B ...................ALMOST ALL R1B (M269, P312)

LACTOSE INTOLERANT ..........LACTOSE PERSISTENT

VERY DARK HUE ..................OLIVE TO LIGHT SKIN

DARK HAIR.................................... VARIED

U4, U5, U8 ....................... H1, H3, H5, U'S & *'S

BRUTE .......................................GRACILE

LONG HEADED .................SHORT TO MESO HEADED

LONG FACED ...........................SHORT FACED

BLUE EYES (poss)...........................VARIED



In my mind, it has become increasing clear that Basques do not represent a relict of old Europe.
Anyone believe they are in some way a relict population?

Click to expand...

Basques, Portuguese, Spaniards, and Algerians have been studied for HLA and mitochondrial DNA markers, and the data analysis suggests that pre-Neolithic gene flow into Iberia came from ancient white North Africans (Hamites). The Basque language has also been used to translate the Iberian-Tartesian language and also Etruscan and Minoan Linear A. Physical anthropometry of Iberian Mesolithic and Neolithic skeletons does not support the demic replacement in Iberia of preexisting Mesolithic people by Neolithic

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LeBrok said:

Was this paper mentioned on Basque threads here? I don't remember, but it is fairly old though. It boldly states this:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10510567
I can't find a way accessing the whole thing.

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Wilhelm said:

My goodness, this is from 1999, that's like the prehistory of genetics..

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MOESAN said:

again this mocking or bashing concerning "old" science" (1999: how old!!!) - we find shit in every science period and good stuff too
by the way I red a study about this HLA comparisons including Sardinians, Basques, Madrid people and Alger town people (that is not proved to be only 'berber' = 'hamitic') - I posted about that yet
this abstract conclusion you mention here is an EXTRAPOLATION engaging only the people who mad it! in fact the conlusions I red, me, were that by some aspects, the Basques, Madrilenes and Algerians of Alger had some common genes, but that said, it showed Basques are closer to Madrilenes and had too some special links with Sardinians and more than that shared like Madrilenes some genes with Atlantic population and some genes with Central Europe (Celtic cradle?) -
so NO simplification, contrary to the rule in the link you cites, and here, I agree with you when I disagree for your irrespect for some science which don't deserve it

so I think Basques for the most have post paleo mesolithical heritage + a lot of largely named 'mediterranean' but arrived there for the most before neolithic or sometimes with N-African neolithic; no important demic 'Cardial', and just some atlantic megalithic (rulers?) what can include east-mediterraneans + other mesolithical people (akin to the first ones)... the central Europe HLA could prove some light impact of more northern and eastern people
concerning faces, all of us, let's separate broad cromagnoid faces with soft frontal lines from the later arrived but more brutal long faced combe-capelle-brünn people with their receding frontal

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MOESAN said:

again this mocking or bashing concerning "old" science" (1999: how old!!!) - we find shit in every science period and good stuff too
by the way I red a study about this HLA comparisons including Sardinians, Basques, Madrid people and Alger town people (that is not proved to be only 'berber' = 'hamitic') - I posted about that yet
this abstract conclusion you mention here is an EXTRAPOLATION engaging only the people who mad it! in fact the conlusions I red, me, were that by some aspects, the Basques, Madrilenes and Algerians of Alger had some common genes, but that said, it showed Basques are closer to Madrilenes and had too some special links with Sardinians and more than that shared like Madrilenes some genes with Atlantic population and some genes with Central Europe (Celtic cradle?) -
so NO simplification, contrary to the rule in the link you cites, and here, I agree with you when I disagree for your irrespect for some science which don't deserve it

so I think Basques for the most have post paleo mesolithical heritage + a lot of largely named 'mediterranean' but arrived there for the most before neolithic or sometimes with N-African neolithic; no important demic 'Cardial', and just some atlantic megalithic (rulers?) what can include east-mediterraneans + other mesolithical people (akin to the first ones)... the central Europe HLA could prove some light impact of more northern and eastern people
concerning faces, all of us, let's separate broad cromagnoid faces with soft frontal lines from the later arrived but more brutal long faced combe-capelle-brünn people with their receding frontal

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Maciamo said:

I don't know who said that the Basques descended mostly/exclusively from Mesolithic hunter-gatherers. This is the kind of misconception propagated by National Geographic, who also used to claim that R1b was the haplogroup of Cro-Magnon.

For my part, I have maintained for all the years I have been active in population genetics that R1b came with the PIE from the Pontic Steppe, not from Palaeolithic or Mesolithic Europeans. It is clear from the modern Y-DNA lineages that before being overtaken by R1b men, the Basques belonged to a typical blend of Mesolithic I2a1 (about 41% originally) and Neolithic/Chalcolithic E1b1b (20%), J2 (20%), G2a (13%) and J1 (6%)*. After all people from the Basque Country didn't stay hunter-gatherers throughout the Neolithic. I2a1 remained much higher in the Pyrénnées because it was a harsh environment for agriculture and hunter-gatherers survived in isolation from Neolithic farmers there at least until the Bronze Age.

I have explained many times over the years that the Basques inherited Indo-European lineages almost only through the paternal side (R1b), but preserved most of their Neolithic maternal lineages. Although the Basques do carry some Mesolithic lineages like U5, most of the mtDNA is actually Neolithic (J1c, K1a, T2, X2 and some H subclades like H5a and H13).

There are two haplogroups found at high frequencies among the Basques, H1 and V, which origin remains unclear. Neither of them have been found before the Neolithic, although there are good reasons to believe that they were already in Europe during the Mesolithic. For example, the Saami have only U5 and V and are almost exclusively descended from Mesolithic Europeans. Another argument is that H1 and V are both rare in the Near East and have a much bigger diversity in Europe.

H1 was found in Neolithic Europe, but was also certainly an important Indo-European lineage, notably the H1b and H1c subclades, which are found throughout Central Asia and Siberia. But the Basques belong mostly to the H1e1a1, H1j1, H1t1a and H1av1 subclades. I don't have enough information about their distribution in the rest of the world to judge their origin, but they are clearly not the typical IE subclades.

Like H1, U5 was a major Indo-European lineage, so it cannot be completely excluded that some Basque U5 came with the R1b invaders. However the Basques belong essentially to two U5 subclades quite specific to them: U5b1c1a and U5b1f. Both are found primarily in the Pyrénées, so there are good chances that these are Mesolithic remnants linked to I2a1, and not new arrivals brought alongside R1b.

V was also an Indo-European subclade, and along with U5 and J1b1a could have been one of the the three original maternal lineages of R1b tribes. The Basques belong to V1a and V22. I don't have enough data either to determine if these are Mesolithic or IE.


* If present among the Basques, J2b2 and G2a3b1 could have come alongside R1b, rather than during the Neolithic.

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martiko said:

I think you are mistaken, a large bio-medical study, two years before, and for all the peoples of Europe, was between the other shows the great similarities between Basque and Irish, and less between Irish and Welsh or between Basque and Sardinian. France and the closest Basque people were Gascon and Breton. What seems natural for people familiar with the Basque and Breton or gascon.
It was also clear that the Basque despite their small numbers have more genetic variation that brought together Irish and Scottish.
I wonder why this proximity between Basque, Irish, Breton, because in the Basque L21 that is second behind df27 marker in Basque. but I do not have the answer, we can think of weddings over the centuries can be but nothing is obvious. This is what some called the Celtic crown (Atlantic frontage) can be.

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Angela said:

I can't see how the Basques have a Mesolithic origin, unless La Brana, Loschbour and the Swedish hunter gatherers sequenced so far are not representative of all the Mesolithic populations in Iberia. As you know, the data so far says they are yDNA "I", and mtDNA "U", and neither are all that common in Iberia. Also, we know La Brana is autosomally related to north east Baltic populations, not the Basque. Unless you feel that other Mesolithic samples not yet studied will provide a very different picture?


&&&: just a practical detail: mt DNA can be «washed» very easily, living no trace of itself when the biallelic autosomals passed by the previous female population can survive: a male population can take some «foreign» autosomals along the previously corresponding «mtDNA» when mating with a new female population – if they agregate an other new female population, they would pass a lot of their biallelic mixture to their descendants, but less of the mtDNA because fathers cannot pass (for the big majority) their mt DNA even to their daughters. Assimetry here >> drift.


Male or female mediated HGs %s are not always the exact reflect of autosomals %s (I would have prefered!) - and I think Y-I2a1 was denser in Basque country before historical times – and for I know, mt-U is not so low there comapred to other regions...
La Brana fellow is labelled 'north-east baltic': maybe were he only more vaguely 'northern european'? Otherwise, no, I don't figure out a too different picture of Mesolithic people in Iberia, but surely some differences: just recalling it was not an homogenous population for me but already a mix of 2 phyla with regional variations, in Europe as in Iberia – the autosomals labellization is for me unprecise even if a necessary step onwards the solution -

Also, how would you factor in the high levels of R1b1b1 in the Basque and the rest of Iberia? Are you positing a mesolithic origin for that as well? The only Mesolithic sample we have from Iberia isn't R1b, and also I haven't seen any traces in the research of upstream clades of R1b in North Africa. Unless you believe the Mesolithic samples we are likely to find in the future will carry some other yDNA signature. I have thought, for example, that it's possible that yDNA E-V13 arrived in the Balkans prior to the Neolithic.


And I never said (even if I confess I was unprecise me too) the mesolithical component among Basques was making the bulk of basques autosomals, but I think there is a bigger proportion than among some other regions of Iberia – I wrote I thought they received a very first wave of 'mediterraneans, before true Neolithic! It is not the same – by the way I say here I think Basques of France are a little bit more «basque» than the basques of Spain (modern industrial attractivity of Southern Basque country, but also more complicated history, even in ancient times concerning mt DNA – I 've to find my source here) -

Then there's the fact that Iberians are very high in the EEF component, and the sample on which that component is measured is a woman from the LBK culture, so we're talking about a group from the Balkans by way of Anatolia.


I agree (it is so evident) with the higher so called 'EEF' component, even if it would deserve a better definition, the genetic definition (nature) being tied too tightly to agricultural neolithic (culture) in this case. By the way, a little survey says they were differences among the so called «neolithical agricultural populations» of Europe, as the differences for mt-DNA between West Hungary LBK's and East Hungary ALPC's*- As for 'north' or 'baltic', the autosomal pooling conceals maybe more than a component at smaller grain... and 'Stuttgart' is maybe not the better example for a genuine 'EEF' - but Basques here again seem to me a bit more archaic than other Iberians as a whole (but some Spain or Portugal regions could deserve also more attention?) - I still have big doubts about the identity of iberian Neolithic period people with danubian farmers of the same time – this 'EEF' seems to me a melting pot result of bad crossed surveys with heterogenous elements -
... hum... this new analysis produced results very different from the Dodecad ones concerning modern populations??? -
*: try: http://forwhattheywereweare.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/54c7a-hungaryneolithicbanffy.png?w=6408h=360

And if the high prevalence of the EEF component isn't tied to R1b, then what y haplogroups carried it, or are we going to say that it was mostly carried by the women because the R1b migration was male mediated?


Y-R1b appears to me a male HG concealing diverses autosomals populations, some send by it, others acquired in place(s)...but in this mix it seems mt-H3 + mt H5 have some importance: were they associated with Y-R1b at the beginning??? I 'd dreamed at some point in a possible introgretion of Y-R1b (L23?........)+ mt-H in the mediterranean area, taking foot in southern Italy and France, and in eastern Spain, maybe with places in North Africa (Maghreb), having in mind the celtic legends so controversed: the scenario would have been then a few people developping demographically, more quickly in central East of France (baby boom here again), maybe Bell Beakers – but the very overwhelming domination of Y-R1b on Atlantic shores, with almost NO Y-J2, NO Y-J1, NO Y-E1B, NO G2a, all that is an obstacle to this hypothesis, for me. I still see the most of Y-R1b down L23 arriving through North-East or East-Central Europe: so: 'EEF' as reference for them: no, thanks, unless a distinct element pushed in the 'EEF' bag by mistake - but mt H3/H5 could have been in Iberia for a long enough time (encompassing the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition time) and send the western component of 'EEF'.They were maybe an old form of 'western mediterranean' and gained ground in central and northern Europe not only at post paleolithical times (diverses emigration in North from S-Europe, even North Africa) BUT AT ENEOLITHICAL AND EARLY METAL AGES, being the female incorportated in the megalithic province and after in the Atlantic Bronze Age where Y-R1b, come from East and colonizing West, may have played a big role of osmose and homogeneization? The former so called «mediterraneans» of western Europe showed far more links with 'cromagnoids' than with true eastern 'mediterraneans' but evolved in a changed climatic environment – the basques are not as a whole direct descendants of paleo-mesolithic people of Franco-Cantabricas (they have some parts, nevertheless) but are not for that assimilable to true neolithical Near Eastern people: autosomals even if unparfect, prove it -

As for the whole issue of the Celts, the only thing I've seen in the literature is one movement from central Europe. Even so, the groups that spoke Celtic must have had varied autosomal components, or else their movement into the Iberian peninsula could not have involved population replacement, because the EEF percentages in Iberia are much different from those in Ireland and Scotland for example, or even from England.


I agree for the most, look above – the farther the colonization, the farther the crossings and admixtures – I think too proto-historical Celts came at last from Central Europe (their male ancestors from farther in East), but in at least two big waves, the first at Bronze Age and not at Iron Age -

I hope you don't think I'm badgering you with these questions. I'm trying to build a coherent picture of these population movements into Europe, and somehow the answers have to incorporate all the data we're accumulating, mtDNA, yDNA, autosomal DNA and anthropological data as well.

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