Basques Tyrsenian Theory Cave DNA unravels riddle of the Basque people

Scientists show distinct population, with unique language, descended from local
hunter gatherers who mixed with arriving farmers - rather than being an
indigenous group who lived separately for millennia

The Basque people of northern Spain and southern France have always seen
themselves as a population apart.
Their unique language and distinct genetic make-up has also puzzled
anthropologists: Just where exactly did they come from?
An international team of geneticists may now have solved the riddle, delving
deep into DNA history to find they descended from early farmers who mixed
with local hunter-gatherers before becoming separated.
Archaeologists working at a site in Atapeurca, Spain Photo: CESAR MANSO/AFP
The results overturn the existing theory that they were an indigenous
population isolated for more than 10,000 years.
Mattias Jakobsson, of Uppsala University in Sweden, analysed DNA recovered
from eight Stone Age skeletons found in a cave in El Portaln, Atapuerca,
northern Spain.
They would have lived more than 3500 years ago at a time when south-west
Europe had made the switch from hunter-gatherer societies to farming.
The researchers found that these early farmers were the closest ancestors to
present-day Basques, according to their paper published in the Proceedings of
the National Academy of Sciences on Monday.
And their genomes shared a similar story to those of central and
northern Europe, where an arriving population of farmers interbred
with the local hunter-gatherer populations.
Our results show that the Basques trace their ancestry to early farming
groups from Iberia, which contradicts previous views of them being a remnant
population that trace their ancestry to Mesolithic hunter-gatherer groups, says
Prof. Mattias Jakobsson of Uppsala University, who headed the study.
The difference between Basques and other Iberian groups is these latter ones
show distinct features of admixture from the east and from north
Africa.
The findings contradict existing theories that Basques because of their distinct
culture and language, Euskera, which is unrelated to indo-European langauges
had existed for more than 10,000 years.
Dr Torsten Gnther, another author, said: One of the great things about working
with ancient DNA is that the data obtained is like opening a time capsule. Seeing
the similarities between modern Basques and these early farmers directly
tells us that Basques remained relatively isolated for the last 5,000
years but not much longer.