The genetic analysis of ancient fossils found in Atapuerca in northern Spain, seems to have solved the mystery of the origin one of the most enigmatic people of Europe. Basque
The genetic characteristics of this group of northern Spain and southern France and its unique language, have intrigued anthropologists for decades .
Read: Spanish fossils revealing the origin of Neanderthals
One of the prevailing theories is that they came from a group of ancient hunters who had not crossed with other populations. That is, they were genetically linked to pre-agricultural populations.
Now, A study published in the journal PNAS states that descended from the first farmers who were linked with local hunters. And it was later that they were isolated for thousands of years
This means that the origin of the Basques is more recent than previously thought.. It goes back to 5,000 years
Descendants of farmers
The Basques have a single language, Euskera, which is not related to any other European language, or indeed the world .
Besides the Basques, inhabitants of a mountainous region of western Europe have a different genetic pattern of their neighbors in France and Spain.
Read also: Spain decoded the human genome oldest
Therefore, it was logical to believe they were representatives of an older group of
Mattias Jakobsson, a researcher at Uppsala University. in Sweden, analyzed eight genomes farmers El Portalón (Atapuerca) lived between 3,500 and 5,000 years ago, d fter the transition to agriculture in southwest Europe.
The results of the study showed that Iberian primitive farmers are the closest ancestors of today’s Basques.
comparisons with other ancient populations European farmers show that agriculture reached the Iberian Peninsula at the hands of the same groups that migration into northern and central Europe.
These pioneers expanded from the Middle East across Europe about 7,000 years ago, in the period known as the Neolithic.
Once these farmers settled, mixed with hunter-gatherers local, descendants of the people who inhabited Europe during the last Ice Age.
Differences
The new study also explains some of the differences between the Basques and their neighbors in France and Spain.
After the hunter-gatherers were mixed with farmers, the ancestors of the Basques were isolated human groups that surrounded by a number of factors related to geography and culture.
“It’s hard to speculate, but we worked with Basque historians and is evident from the historical records that this area was very difficult to conquer,” Jakobson says the BBC.
This It means that the Basque region was not affected by subsequent migrations that shaped the genetic patterns in the rest of Europe.
One of these migrations occurred in the Bronze Age, when populations of the eastern periphery of the continent moved en masse to the west.
It is believed that this migration spread Indo-European languages in Europe, especially in the center and north and a little less in the south.
While the genomes of the French and Spanish have evidence of this contribution genetics of this, the Basques.
The other migration contributed to widen the gap was that of the Muslim army in 711 d. C., who crossed from North Africa to the Iberian Peninsula kicking an occupation that lasted more than 700 years.
While it is possible to detect certain genetic traits of North African and sub-Saharan ancestry in Spanish, these features are missing in the Basques.
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