How did the Basques become R1b

[Maciamo]

We have discussed this topic extensively in various threads on the forum over the years, but there doesn't seem to be one thread dedicated to the subject. I will summarise my thoughts here so that I don't have to repeat myself every time.

As I have explained in my R1b history, between 2500 and 1800 BCE Western Europe was invaded by Bronze-age Indo-European speakers carrying mostly the R1b paternal lineage.

I could be believed that the Basques escaped this Indo-European invasion because they retained their non-IE language to this day. That is not the case.

In Iberia, it seems that the (Proto-)Celts of the early Bronze Age simply failed to impose their language not just over the Basque and Aquitanians, but also over all Mediterranean Iberia. In fact, there is no conclusive evidence that (Proto-)Celtic was spoken in Iberia before the Iron Age, with the La Tène expansion of the Celts to Northeast Iberia. Iberian was still spoken when the Romans arrived. It was the Romanisation that eventually obliterated Iberian language around the 2nd century.

I think it is very possible that all Iberia and Southwest France, and not just the Basques, kept their original Neolithic languages following the Bronze Age Indo-European invasions.

The survival of the indigenous language would have been the most likely scenario if the IE/R1b invaders were predominantly men. An army of adventurous Celtic men riding horses and equipped with bronze weapons could have butchered a substantial part of the Neolithic Iberian male population and taken their women. As good conquerors they would have taken many wives or concubines each (polygamy), having a great many children each, which helped the spread of R1b Y-DNA lineages (see How did R1b become dominant in Western Europe). Children, however, learn the language of the people who raise them, and these kinds of fathers would not have been able to take care of so many children. They would have concentrated on ruling their new land and enjoying their privileges, and left the education of their offspring to the (local) women.

After one, or a few, generation(s) their IE language would have completed disappeared, leaving only the previous Neolithic languages. It is possible, and even expected, that a few loanwords from (Proto-)Celtic entered the non-IE languages of Iberia and Southwest France to fill the gaps in vocabulary for new Bronze Age technologies brought by the Indo-Europeans. This is exactly what we see in the modern Basque vocabulary. I expect that the same happened to all other non-IE languages of the peninsula in the Bronze Age.

 

[GloomyGonzales]

As I have explained in my R1b history, between 2500 and 2000 BCE Western Europe was invaded by Bronze-age Indo-European speakers carrying mostly the R1b paternal lineage.

I could be believed that the Basques escaped this Indo-European invasion because they retained their non-IE language to this day. That is not the case.

R1b folks haven’t been IE horse riders at the first place they were seafarers and belonged to Cardium Pottery or Cardial Ware culture. They migrated from Levant (that’s why R1b Basques have no Caucasian component) by water route along seashore and made first European settlement in present day Albania (see map below).



Albania is the palace where the first European clades below R1b-L23 have appeared. It’s pretty much obvious and can be seen on the map for R1b-L151 and R1b-L51 distribution.

http://foto.rambler.ru/photos/51179ebd-c189-9a89-7d9e-0c95bc909bcb/

Moving along seashores R1b folks soon reached South France then Portugal and Britannia. From history we know them as Ibero-Ligurians. Spread and distribution of U152 clades mirror expansion of Ligures in inland France and Iberian peninsular.
Later they were captured and assimilated be IE folks.

 

[Finalise]

My last post on this site.


How about this R1b is a western European hg, and R1a is an eastern European haplogroup.

How about maybe because the celts lived in western europe, you're wrongly assuming a modern nation has monopoly over a y-chromosome.

How about maybe the Slavs lived in Eastern Europe, and you're wrongfully assuming the same thing.

How about the Indo-Europeans were a mixture of R1b, R1a, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, considering they were modern tribes living in the cross roads of humanity in Eurasia.

How about there were different tribes of R1b, some pre-IE, some IE.

Can you explain this to me, since R1b is 18,000 years old, and in Chad/Cameroon this goes up to 90% frequency, and those people are definitely not 90% white, are you saying R1b carriers were black 18,000 thousands years ago?

Assuming you're considering them as Europeans 6000 years ago, are you saying they went from black to white in a little over 10,000 years? Think about that.

Ill say it again, as I made this analogy before.

Haplogroups are like stds. You can spread them around, give them to the next person, make maps out of it, but it doesn't tell you anything about the genetic content of the person. It just says they have an std.

Goodbye to you, good sir, and all the people in this forum.

 

[sparkey]

How about this R1b is a western European hg, and R1a is an eastern European haplogroup.

Anciently/originally? How anciently? Who introduced it? These are the questions we're trying to answer.

How about maybe because the celts lived in western europe, you're wrongly assuming a modern nation has monopoly over a y-chromosome.

Who is saying that "a modern nation has monopoly over a y-chromosome"? You're not responding to anybody.

How about the Indo-Europeans were a mixture of R1b, R1a, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, considering they were modern tribes living in the cross roads of humanity in Eurasia.

Who is saying that the Indo-Europeans were not a mixture? (And seriously? M? You're not even trying.)

How about there were different tribes of R1b, some pre-IE, some IE.

Did anybody say anything that would contradict this? The question is how a particular non-IE group came to be R1b dominant.

Can you explain this to me, since R1b is 18,000 years old, and in Chad/Cameroon this goes up to 90% frequency, and those people are definitely not 90% white, are you saying R1b carriers were black 18,000 thousands years ago?

That doesn't follow under anybody's logic that I've read.

Assuming you're considering them as Europeans 6000 years ago, are you saying they went from black to white in a little over 10,000 years? Think about that.

I would think about that... but it doesn't make any sense...

Ill say it again, as I made this analogy before.

Haplogroups are like stds. You can spread them around, give them to the next person, make maps out of it, but it doesn't tell you anything about the genetic content of the person. It just says they have an std.

That's nonsensical. A Y-DNA haplogroup is a part of the genetics of a man. You're also severely underestimating the amount of information Y-DNA analysis of populations can contain. It has many advantages over autosomal analysis, the most important being that it is much easier to date. It is also easier to isolate certain strains (haplogroups vs. components) and assign meaning to them.

Your STD analogy only works to a point. Actually, if we were to sample virus strains and determine their phylogeny, we would have a very good understanding of how they were passed historically, as well as the point of origin... of the virus. If you want to find points of origins of human paternal lineages, obviously Y-DNA is much more useful than STDs.

Goodbye to you, good sir, and all the people in this forum.

See ya.

 

[zanipolo]

My last post on this site.

This is the 3rd "last post" you mentioned.

 

[zanipolo]

R1b folks haven’t been IE horse riders at the first place they were seafarers and belonged to Cardium Pottery or Cardial Ware culture. They migrated from Levant (that’s why R1b Basques have no Caucasian component) by water route along seashore and made first European settlement in present day Albania (see map below).
View attachment 5812


Albania is the palace where the first European clades below R1b-L23 have appeared. It’s pretty much obvious and can be seen on the map for R1b-L151 and R1b-L51 distribution.

http://foto.rambler.ru/photos/51179ebd-c189-9a89-7d9e-0c95bc909bcb/

Moving along seashores R1b folks soon reached South France then Portugal and Britannia. From history we know them as Ibero-Ligurians. Spread and distribution of U152 clades mirror expansion of Ligures in inland France and Iberian peninsular.
Later they were captured and assimilated be IE folks.

I have seen this before and do not entirely diagree with it. it does mean a landing anywhere between the Italian riviera and catalonia

 

[Knovas]

I'd like to add:

- We have late Neolithic R1b from del Bell Beaker site in Germany, so definetely predates the Bronze Age. Just a remark, I know it's probably irrelevant if it's a late Neolithic or an Early Bronze Age event.

- Taking autosomal tests as reference, the Basques along with Sardinians seem to be the least affected by the IE invasions. One could wonder if there were many different IE waves, and the first speakers in Europe were not the carriers of some components. Or in other words, there wasn't much of a difference between the first IE invaders and the Neolithic population regarding genetics.

 

[nordicwarrior]

The survival of the indigenous language would have been the most likely scenario if the IE/R1b invaders were predominantly men. An army of adventurous Celtic men riding horses and equipped with bronze weapons could have butchered a substantial part of the Neolithic Iberian male population and taken their women. As good conquerors they would have taken many wives or concubines each (polygamy), having a great many children each, which helped the spread of R1b Y-DNA lineages (see How did R1b become dominant in Western Europe). Children, however, learn the language of the people who raise them, and these kinds of fathers would not have been able to take care of so many children. They would have concentrated on ruling their new land and enjoying their privileges, and left the education of their offspring to the (local) women.

Replace the horses with boats and this sounds alot like the Vikings. Or the Anglo-Saxons. Or even the Normans. What comes around goes around I guess.

R1b hasn't always been the sedate, cultured haplogroup we see today. And here I was feeling guilty about I1's past rampages.

 

[nordicwarrior]

Finalise, you should reconsider leaving the site. Just because you have a differing opinion from another individual (or group), that's no reason to excuse yourself from the exchange of ideas. Life is about contrasting viewpoints, if everyone agreed all the time wouldn't we all get bored quickly?

Plenty of language experts on Eupedia would love nothing more than to dissect past perfect tenses of Latin verbs with you. That's not my thing, but I don't begrudge others for their niche interests-- nor should you. So please continue to contribute on this site, and use your sense of humor as a shield to protect you from any errant blows.

Now back to R1b Basque... I don't see how this tribe could maintain such a seperate identity by travelling through an over-land route. I'm thinking they originally arrived in Iberia by boat (via Med. Sea) with not much interaction along the way. And their current population advantage comes from implementing more complex organizational networks over time rather than pressing military advantages.

 

[Sennevini]

I still think it is possible that R1b in Western Europe can be a late Neolithic fenomenon before the arrival of Indo-European languages. It is possible for people in a large area to take their language from a small ruling elite (see Hungarians, Romance people).

 

[Knovas]

There was already R1b during the late Neolithic. If they were IE speakers or not, that's another issue, but seems pretty much a Celtic marker (or mostly carried by Celts), who clearly spoke IE. On the other hand, what it's an evidence is that, despite the high R1b levels among Basques, they fall definetely outside the modern European variation when checking autosomal tests. That means overall they were the least affected by the successive migrations, and possibly R1b has little to do with some components, specially the West Asian genetic signature, the one which seems to correlate with the IE irruption into Europe. But as I said, maybe the initial wave only carried a haplogroup (R1b), and we could be dealing with a population fairly similar to the Neolithic pre-IE inhabitants in genetic terms. That would explain why the Basques still show such a curious peculiarity, and points to the need of another explanation for the autosomal results.

If the answer is that only some types of R1b carried the West Asian related components, then I am not enough versed to speculate which ones and why the Basques were not impregned by them. That would probably consist on checking common subclades which Basques lack or simply possess at very low levels.

 

[nordicwarrior]

Sennevini and Knovas--both of your last comments work with my Med. boat theory. Travel over water gets them to Iberia faster and earlier than wandering on foot (or even horse).

 

[Sennevini]

I think there are two ways in which R1b could have reached Western Europe, all of which is just guessing, but we have to start somewhere:

I: They came from Balkan/Anatolia and travelled along the Danube and Rhine, spreading over the more sparse populated Western Europe, profiting in population growth from their late neolithic agriculture for which there was a lot of space in Western Europe.

II: they came from the sea directly (also from Balkan/Anatolia) in Western Europe, but, because the variance of R1b is higher in France than Iberia, I prefer the place of arrival then more in Southern France.

For now, if R1b can be connected with a pre-Indo-European rapid spreading late neolithic culture, I would prefer the Danube setting, but I certainly think we should not underestimate the faring skills of the people in this time.

The arrival of Indo-European just seems slightly to late for me to have tremendous effect on the population (even in the more changeable Y-dna) as a whole. As said, language can be taken from a powerful (small) elite, of which there are examples.
That does not mean I disregard spread of language with spread of people; no, of course, when for example pioneers take possession of a land (as in America, but also in the neolithic), they will take their language with them.

To stay on topic: if we see the spread of R1b as suggested by me, Basque may have been a language spread in neolithic by R1b-people.

 

[nordicwarrior]

I don't doubt R1b travelled into Europe through the Danube, several different routes over land, through the Baltic, and hugging the Northern coast of the Mediterranean Sea by boat. Their huge numbers indicate multiple methods of arrival in wave after wave.

Here I'm referring specifically to the original Basque settlers though. Their unusual language tells me they made little contact with neighbors on the journey from the Russian steppes (if that's still where science has them pegged) to their new home in Iberia. How else could such a unique language develop?

They would have had to travel over water with little to no neighbor contact--ensuring the purity of the language-- and the Mediterranean route makes the most sense.

 

[Maciamo]

I think there are two ways in which R1b could have reached Western Europe, all of which is just guessing, but we have to start somewhere:

I: They came from Balkan/Anatolia and travelled along the Danube and Rhine, spreading over the more sparse populated Western Europe, profiting in population growth from their late neolithic agriculture for which there was a lot of space in Western Europe.

II: they came from the sea directly (also from Balkan/Anatolia) in Western Europe, but, because the variance of R1b is higher in France than Iberia, I prefer the place of arrival then more in Southern France.

For now, if R1b can be connected with a pre-Indo-European rapid spreading late neolithic culture, I would prefer the Danube setting, but I certainly think we should not underestimate the faring skills of the people in this time.

I also think that the seafaring abilities of people 5000 years ago would have been sufficient for them to travel long distances across the Black Sea and Mediterranean. However the size of the ships would have been small and they could never have launched a massive migration or invasion by sea. Neolithic farmers certainly used ships to colonise the Mediterranean coast and islands, but I seriously doubt that the Indo-Europeans from the Pontic Steppe did, apart maybe for moving along the Black Sea coast. A small contingent of immigrants landing in France or Iberia would never have been able to take over the whole of Western Europe in a few centuries. That is just not possible. Additionally the archaeological record doesn't show any new Bronze Age or steppe culture springing out of nowhere in France or Iberia, but clearly shows a slow progression from Ukraine and Romania along the Danube, then from Germany to all Western Europe. There is not the slightest doubt about that in my mind.

 

[Ziober]

I'd like to add:

- We have late Neolithic R1b from del Bell Beaker site in Germany, so definetely predates the Bronze Age. Just a remark, I know it's probably irrelevant if it's a late Neolithic or an Early Bronze Age event.

I think bell beaker culture was originated in SW Iberia. Brought to Europe by celts describing a circle as the clock direction, from west facade into actual France, then Germany, finally from Germany to NE Iberia. The first were tartessian, vettons, celticis, gaellics. The "back to home" cames from Central Europe hallsatt people entering Iberia and becaming celtiberians (actual catalonia, aragon, soria, la rioja, NE castilla la mancha)

http://www.worldfamilies.net/forum/index.php?topic=10990.320;wap2

 

[nordicwarrior]

I also think that the seafaring abilities of people 5000 years ago would have been sufficient for them to travel long distances across the Black Sea and Mediterranean. However the size of the ships would have been small and they could never have launched a massive migration or invasion by sea. Neolithic farmers certainly used ships to colonise the Mediterranean coast and islands, but I seriously doubt that the Indo-Europeans from the Pontic Steppe did, apart maybe for moving along the Black Sea coast. A small contingent of immigrants landing in France or Iberia would never have been able to take over the whole of Western Europe in a few centuries. That is just not possible. Additionally the archaeological record doesn't show any new Bronze Age or steppe culture springing out of nowhere in France or Iberia, but clearly shows a slow progression from Ukraine and Romania along the Danube, then from Germany to all Western Europe. There is not the slightest doubt about that in my mind.

Then how do you explain the utter disconnectedness of the Basque language? I agree that most of R1b arrived by the method you've mentioned, but here we are talking only about the Basque people. A large fleet of ships wouldn't be needed-- just 40 or so kayaks or canoes would be more than enough to get the job done. If Iberian was lightly populated at the time of their arrival, the founder population wouldn't have to be very large. Especially if they had a more efficient organizational/governing system than the existing tribe(s).

 

[ElHorsto]

I'd like to add:

- We have late Neolithic R1b from del Bell Beaker site in Germany, so definetely predates the Bronze Age. Just a remark, I know it's probably irrelevant if it's a late Neolithic or an Early Bronze Age event.

I thought BB R1b represents an additional problem for the IE R1b theory. Do you mean that the R1b in that one Bell Beaker was inherited from very first Bronze age IE invaders and that Bell Beakers were originally not R1b?

 

[Knovas]

No, I didn't mean this, that point does not look relevant to me. I was just remarking that R1b was present in the late Neolithic, so definitely before the Bronze Age. What maybe we should consider, is that IE languages arrived before the Bronze Age, and R1b could still fit. But you know, late Neolithic or Early Bronze Age...it's pretty much the same. What would be really surprising, is to find R1b in the "middle Neolithic".

What seems clear, is that Basques were the same affected by R1b compared to other groups (Irish, Welsh, Scots, and so on), and they lack the West Asian related componenets or have very low levels, while the others do have noticeable percents usually. So what seems to not fit, is West Asian = R1b, although perhaps only some subclades carried the component. I'm not able to speculate more on the issue as I said, possibly other forumers would do it better than me.

 

[Wilhelm]

I don't think R1b is related with Indo-european invasions...probably arrived before, and then later came in as a second wave with Indo-Europeans once they adopted the language and culture (Celtic, Italic, Germanic) and probably related with some kind of very primitive Proto-proto-Basque language. What is clear is that R1b translates autosomally with the Atlantic/Western kind of components. For example, in the Eurogenes EUtest, the Atlantic component peaks in Basques, but it is followed by Scottish and Irish people, and then other like Spanairds, French..etc which mimmics very well the frequency of R1b in Europe. This kind of Western components, what is hidden inside of them, is ultimately a mix of West-Asian and Mesolithic Euro (Northern-like), but this west-asian doesn't involve the Caucasus/West-Asian component (as it is non-existant in Basques). So, we assume there have been different waves from West-Asia, of different sources.