A new study, conducted by an international team of researchers, led by Uppsala University, has finally shed some light on the genetic makeup of the Basque people, who inhabit an area in northern Spain, called the Basque Country.
THE MYSTERY BEHIND THE BASQUE PEOPLE
For some time, this autonomous community has puzzled scientist due to its distinctive customs and genetic patterns, which are unlike those found in its neighboring countries, Spain and France. Furthermore, the Basque ethnic group utilizes a unique language, called Euskera, that is unrelated to any other spoken language in the world today, as reported by Tech Times.
Based on the genetic data that was gathered, researchers were able to determine that the Basque people are actually closely related to Neolithic Iberian farmers. To come to this conclusion, DNA samples were obtained from the remains of eight early Iberian farmers, who lived more than 3,500 years ago, found in El Portalón cave, located in northern Spain.
During this period of time, southwest Europe was in the midst of a transition, from a hunting-gathering focused society to a farming based one. Although previous hypotheses had associated the Basque people to an earlier, pre-farming group, Iberian farmers appear to be the closest relatives to the community, according to genetic sequencing data.
Furthermore, the DNA suggests that these farmers, like populations in central and northern Europe, originated from a southern wave of expansion, before interbreeding with hunter-gatherer groups and spreading.
“The genetic variation observed in modern-day Basques is significantly closer to the newly sequenced early farmers than to older Iberian hunter-gatherer samples,” stated Uppsala University’s Torsten Günther to Red Orbit.
“Parts of that early farmer population probably remained relatively isolated since then (which we can still see in the distinct culture and language of Basques) while other modern Iberians show signals of later historic events which makes them different from Basques,” he added.
The findings of this study are now published in the journal PNAS.
Photo courtesy of Eddy Van 3000 via Flickr.
