The Basques have been a distinct population for at least 18 000 years,
according to archaeological discoveries. Now these have been reinforced
by genetic evidence.
The Basques, from northern Spain and southwestern France, speak a language
unrelated to any other language spoken today. It is the only survivor of
the languages spoken in southwestern Europe six or seven thousand years
ago when early farmers arrived from eastern Mediterranean, bringing their
technology and Indo-European languages with them.
The Basques are also genetically distinct from all other Europeans.
They have the highest frequency of the rhesus-negative blood group gene
in the world and a low frequency of the B gene in the ABO system.
Francesc Calafell and Jaume Bertranpetit of the University of Barcelona
carried out a statistical analysis of Basque DNA. They discovered that Basques
have many other distinct gene frequencies. However, within the Basque region
the frequency of distinctive genes hardly varies. This suggests that the
Basque people moved around within the Pyrenean mountain valleys while remaining
isolated from the rest of the world – at least, until recently.
Calafell and Bertranpetit believe today’s Basques are the direct descendants
of an ancient population that became isolated in its mountain home at the
peak of the last Ice Age and has remained untouched genetically and linguistically
ever since (American Journal of Physical Anthropology, vol 93, p 201).
Archaeological evidence, including many cave paintings, indicates that
a sizeable population lived in the Basque area when the last Ice Age was
drawing to its close. It shows that between 20 500 and 16 500 years ago
there was a marked increase in the population. Thereafter, the population
remained pretty constant.
The Basques were slow to adopt farming and other cultural innovations
when they were introduced into Europe from the east. Even classical writers
in the first millennium BC remarked on the strangeness of the Basque region.
But geographical barriers alone cannot explain why the Basques did not
breed with other peoples, say Calafell and Bertranpetit (Current Anthropology,
vol 34, p 735). ‘Cultural mechanisms, includ-ing language, played an active
role in the maintenance of genetic identity,’ they say.