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I probably saved the site in my bookmarks but I'm not hunting it down now, lol. I found out that the name Basque was given to this group later in time and originally they were also call "Celts." LOLOLOL They just weren't the Gaelic speaking type I guess. I have stopped looking because there are too many copyists on the net and you find you end up reading the same article more or less over and over again. What a disappointment in some cases but I did write to one of the authors that is connected to BUFO so her ideas are OUT THERE.

There are a lot of people making money off the DNA tests. Some of them not so accurate I think. Many of them only Y-DNA tests and not considering mtDNA.



Don't get me wrong there is Celtic and Viking (which is either Norwegian or Danish) around the British Isles as well. Some they cannot distinguish. Vikings were not a race of people. They were raiders and explorers and could be any of the Scandinavians but it would seem from what I have read the Swedes did not raid this general area I have been talking about. It was either the Danes or the Norwegians.



http://www.politicsforum.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=53454



Guess I have gotten fixated on this topic but it is very obvious especially in Ireland, no matter what these tests might show or they think they show that culture was extremely impacted by the Celts.

Seems to just be a theory that is slowly, possibly being proven. It may explain why the Irish didn't seem to interbreed with the Celts.





Today, more than 60% of Spanish Basques identify themselves exclusively as Basques and not as Spaniards or French, while a mere 2% identify themselves as Spaniards, and 4% as French, and not as Basques.



Genetically, Basques, Spaniards, and Frenchmen are very strongly differentiated from each other, so that a genetic differentiation between the groups is possible. The Spanish and French Basques belong to another haplogroup than their neighbors. By examining certain DNA sequences, we can analyze the genetic origin of the Basques.



"Being Basque" can be defined not only by langauge or by having Basque ancestors, but can also be genetically defined, and thereby answer many questions.





This research included studies of DNA extracted from bones of Neanderthal remains. The account mentions five months of painstaking work to extract a 379-nucleotide fragment from the control region of the Neanderthal's mitochondrial DNA, followed by use of a polymerase chain reaction to reproduce millions of copies of the recovered DNA.



This was carefully sequenced and then a check made of the corresponding mitochondrial DNA from 1,600 modern humans: Native Canadians, Polynesians. Australians, Africans, Asians, and Europeans. Every one of those 1,600 people had at least 371 nucleotides out of those 379 the same; the maximum deviation was just 8 nucleotides.



But the Neanderthal DNA had an average of only 352 nucleotides in common with the modern specimens; it deviated by 27 nucleotides. It was concluded that Homo sapiens and Neanderthals must have diverged from each other between 550,000 and 690,000 years ago for their DNA to be so different.



In contrast, all modern humans probably shared a common ancestor 150,000 or 200,000 years in the past. It was concluded that Neanderthals were probably a fully separate species from modern humans, not just a subspecies: Homo neanderthalensis, not Homo sapiens neanderthalensis.



Looking now at the evidence for the theory that the Basques are descended principally from Neanderthals, everything suddenly falls into place, and the supposition becomes almost self-evident.



Location: The 'home country' of the Neanderthals is well known to have been western Europe. One source says that they "dominated this area for at least a quarter of a million years". Many of the best Neanderthal specimens have originated from the Iberian Peninsular. The Basque Country, lying on the western side of the Pyrenees and on the border between Spain and France, fits in neatly with this location.



The Basques are well-known to have distinctive body characteristics. Kurlansky says "Ample evidence exists that the Basques are a physically distinct group. There is a Basque type with a long straight nose, thick eyebrows, strong chin, and long earlobes" [1].



Basque skulls tend to be built on a different pattern. In the early 1880s, a researcher reported "Someone gave me a Basque body and I dissected it, and I assert that the head was not built like that of other men" [1].



These qualitative differences are indicative, but quantitative evidence, with presence or absence of features, or items being present in different numbers, has greater weight in deciding whether specimens belong to the same or different species. Powerful quantitative evidence comes from a consideration of blood factors.



Human blood is classified according to various parameters, the most important of which are ABO and Rhesus characteristics. In ABO, blood may contain the 'A' factor (giving A-group blood), the 'B' factor (B-group), both 'A' and 'B' (AB blood), or neither (O blood). The A and B factors act as antigens, and if blood containing one or both of them is transferred to a person whose blood does not already contain them, and therefore has the corresponding antibody, adverse reactions occur. Group O blood contains neither antigen but has both antibodies, and can typically be transferred without reaction to any recipient.



Some 55% of Basques have Group O blood, one of the highest percentages in the world [3].



Even stronger evidence comes from the Rhesus factor, discovered only in 1940. The blood of most humans (and, apparently, all other primates [6]) contains this factor, and is called Rhesus-positive or Rh+ blood. Blood lacking this factor is called Rhesus-negative.



The Basques are well-known to have the highest percentage (around 33%) of Rhesus-negative blood of any human population [2], and so are regarded as the original source of this factor. In the United States, some 15% of the 'European' population are Rh-negative, while the percentage in the 'Asian' and 'Black' population is much less than this.



Possession of Rh-negative blood can be a major disadvantage for a human population. A Rh-negative woman who conceives a Rh-positive child with a Rh-positive man will typically bear her first child without special problems. However, because of intermingling of fluids between mother and fetus, the first pregnancy builds up antibodies to Rh+ blood in the woman which typically attack the blood of her subsequent Rh+ children, causing them to miscarry, be stillborn, or die shortly after birth (infant hemolytic disease [6]). This phenomenon is unknown elsewhere in nature, although it can occur with artificial crosses between species, as in mule production [6].



The scenario so far then is this. Around 600,000 years ago, in southern Europe, a species of man separated off from the ancestral line, and we call this species Homo neanderthalensis, the 'N-people'. The blood of this species contained none of the factors A, B, or Rh.



Much later, possibly around 200,000 years ago in Africa, the main human line had picked up the A, B, and Rh factors (possibly from other primates, the Rhesus factor is named after the Rhesus monkey or macaque), and by then could be classed as Homo sapiens, the 'S-people'.



In competition between related species or races, antibodies in their blood are a powerful genetic advantage for those who possess them when competing against those who don't. History has many examples of European settlers who quite unintentionally won out against native populations because the latter had no antibodies against diseases such as measles which the Europeans brought with them.



In the present scenario, a woman of the N-people (Basque, Rh-) who partnered with a man of the S-people (non-Basque, Rh+) would be likely to bear no more than a single child of the partnership. 'Mixed marriages' in humans are not usually genetically disadvantageous, but in this case they would be. The effect would be a continuing reduction in the N-people population as 'mixed' couples produced only a single child, half the nominal population-maintenance rate.



There are other physical characteristics of humans which are typically associated with Rh-negative blood, but which in the present scenario would be regarded as belonging to the N-people. These include early maturity, large head and eyes, high IQ [6], or an extra vertebra (a 'tail bone' -- called a 'cauda'), lower than normal body temperature, lower than normal blood pressure, and higher mental analytical abilities [5].



Another highly distinguishing feature of the Basques is their language, which is related to no other on earth. According to [3], its ancestor was "spoken in western Europe before (possibly long before) the ancestors of all other modern western European languages". This source states that the most strenuous efforts at finding other relatives for Basque have been complete failures.



People have unsuccessfully tried to connect Basque with Berber, Egyptian and other African languages, with Iberian, Pictish, Etruscan, Minoan, Sumerian, the Finno-Ugric languages, the Caucasian languages, the Semitic languages, with almost all the languages of Africa and Asia, living and dead, and even with languages of the Pacific and of North America. Basque absolutely cannot be shown to be related to any other language at all [3].



The structure of the Basque language is also very distinctive, it is said to contain only nouns, verbs, and suffixes. The language strongly defines the Basque people [8]. In the Basque Language, called Euskera, there is no word for Basque. The only word defining a member of the group is Euskaldun, or Euskera speaker. The land is called Euskal Herria -- the land of Euskera speakers.



In the present scenario, Basque is the descendant of a spoken language originated by the N-people, independently of (and possibly at a much earlier time than) the languages of the S-people.



In an interesting study, Philip Lieberman [7] has looked at the mouth cavities and other presumed speech production features of Neanderthal fossils. According to his evaluation, Neanderthal people would have had difficulty in pronouncing the vowel 'ee'. This vowel is missing from normal Basque pronunciation [9].



If the present scenario is valid, then the Basques, mostly stemming from the N-people, would of course be somewhat distinct genetically. In [3] the question is asked, "Are the Basques genetically different from other Europeans?" , with the answer, "Apparently, yes. Recently the geneticist Luiga Luca Cavalli-Sforza has completed a gene map of the peoples of Europe, and he finds the Basques to be strikingly different from their neighbors. The genetic boundary between Basques and non-Basques is very sharp on the Spanish side. On the French side, the boundary is more diffuse: it shades off gradually toward the Garonne in the north. These findings are entirely in agreement with what we know of the history of the Basque language".



The social relationships of the Basques with the rest of the world have been quite unusual for a distinctive human group. While always protecting their unique and separate identity, they have also always striven to interact, cooperate with, and sometimes lead the rest of the world.



Kurlansky points out the remarkable contributions the Basques have made to world history [1]. They were the explorers who connected Europe to the other continents in the Age of Exploration, in trade they were among the first capitalists, experimenting with tariff-free international trade and monopoly breaking, and in the industrial revolution they became leading shipbuilders, steelmakers, and manufacturers.



At the same time, the Basques have always been regarded as 'different', and so inevitably subjected to discriminatory treatment and (sometimes savage) persecution, as in the Franco years [3]. In my book 'Matrix Thinking' [4] I have examined the underlying forces driving interactions between human groups, using the term SIOS, and the way groups recognize and act on differences between those inside and outside their own group.



Genetic differences are one of the most powerful recognition signals in this process, and so it cannot be unexpected that the Basques have suffered in this way. Nowadays such events are regarded in a very negative light, as pointlessly discriminatory. In the Basque case there is some rare justification for this -- a non-Basque man pairing with a Basque women might have expected to have only one child of the marriage, before recent medical procedures got round the Rhesus-negative problem.



Language differences are also very powerful SIOS recognition signals, and it is interesting to look at the Basque case. The Basque language, while retaining its own distinct structure, has heavily borrowed words from other languages. Other languages have borrowed very few words from Basque, regarded as an 'inferior' language, and those that have come over often have had an uncomplimentary sense. As an example, Spanish has borrowed 'izquierdo' (meaning left, as in left-handed) from Basque, and words meaning 'left' often have a negative connotation (in English, 'gauche' and 'sinister' are from the French and Latin for 'left').



It has been suggested [5] that the Basques were the original inhabitants of Europe, and the architects of Stonehenge and similar megalithic structures. These constructions apparently used a unique system of measurement based on the number 7 (instead of 10, 12, or 60), representing a separate origin of a mathematical system.



To round out the present scenario, it is suggested that the present world population is a complex hybrid mixture of at least two human species, one classed as Homo neanderthalensis, the other (or others -- if the A and B blood factors originated from separate species) as Homo sapiens. The genes from these species are now so intermixed (as in cultivated roses) as to make the species name indeterminate.



Further genetic analysis, concentrating on the Basques, may reveal more on this. Research should cover both nuclear DNA, controlling sexually-inherited traits such as blood groups, and mitochondrial DNA, passed on unchanged from mother to child. For reasons given above, the N-people mitochondrial DNA may have now been bred out completely from modern world populations.



Perhaps the Human Genome project needs extension to cover the possible mix of origins. It would also be of interest to check whether any known Neanderthal skeletons had an extra vertebra.



There is an extensive website covering recorded Neanderthal fossils [10], and the information there generally supports the suggestion that the species have merged, with later N-people more similar to the S-people than older specimens.



Supplement 1





When the article above was first made available on the Web in 2002, nine years, it contained some perhaps controversial suggestions.



Among these suggestions were that the Neanderthals had not become extinct as a result of competition with 'superior' modern humans; that instead, Neanderthals had merged with other humans to form a mixed, single modern species (Homo sapiens); and that the Basque people of the western Pyrenees had the largest genetic inheritance from the Neanderthals in their DNA.



The influence of blood groups on human inheritance was looked at, and it was explained that while the nuclear DNA (the main DNA considered in inheritance) of Basques might well have more Neanderthal inheritance than average, their mitochondrial DNA (passed on directly from mother to child) might have had all Neanderthal components bred out.



This was because infant hemolytic disease, where a Rhesus-negative mother mating with a Rhesus-positive man was likely to have only a single child survive, would mitigate against out breeding Basque women having many descendants.



Nine years on, these suggestions are no longer controversial, and are becoming widely accepted. For example, a recent article [13] says:

People of European descent may be 5% Neanderthal, according to a DNA study that questions whether modern humans left Africa and replaced all other existing hominids.



It also mentions:

The researchers agree with recent studies that conclude Neanderthals did not contribute any mitochondrial DNA, or mtDNA, genetic material that is passed from mothers to children.



An extensive National Geographic article on Neanderthals [14] had some interesting reconstructions of what Neanderthal women are thought have looked like. (follow link to page to see graphics)



As well as these published articles, I have received many messages from people with Basque family origins who have recognized themselves or their relatives in the characteristics suggested in the 2002 article. One lady said that the National Geographic reconstruction "could have been a photograph of her mother".



One interesting facet of Neanderthals, not picked up in the 2002 article, is that they are believed to have had reddish hair and light skins [15]. So red hair may be another marker of part-Neanderthal ancestry.



[1] Mark Kurlansky. The Basque History of the World. Penguin Books, New York, 2001.

[2] Robert J. Sawyer. Hominids. Tor Books, 2002.

[3] FAQs About Basque and the Basques. www.cogs.susx.ac.uk/users/larryt/basque.faqs.html.

[4] David Noel. Matrix Thinking. BFC Press, 1997. Chapter 104, Syston Boundaries and SIOS. Also at: www.aoi.com.au/matrix/Mat04.html.

[5] The Rh-negative Factor and 'Reptilian Traits'. www.reptilianagenda.com/research/r110199a.html.

[6] Blood of the Gods. www.geocities.com/ask_lady_lee/rhneg.html.

[7] Philip Lieberman. Eve Spoke: Human Language and Human Evolution. W W Norton, 1998.

[8] What is Basque? www.clan-blackstar.com/research/basque.html.

[9] Basque Pronunciation. www.eirelink.com/alanking/collq1.htm#Pronunciation.

[10] Homo neanderthalensis. www.modernhumanorigins.com/neanderthalensis.html.

[11] Blood Groups, Blood Typing and Blood Transfusions. http://nobelprize.org/educational/medicine/landsteiner/readmore.html.

[12] Boundary of the known Neanderthal world. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/03/photogalleries/neanderthal/.

[13] Are You Part-Neanderthal? http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2006/08/23/1722109.htm.

[14] The Other Humans: Neanderthals Revealed. National Geographic, October 2008, pp. 34-59.

[15] Humans Interbred With Neanderthals: analysis. http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2010/05/07/2892936.htm



http://www.aoi.com.au/bcw/neanderbasque.htm

This is so fascinating. I'm still reading articles about the Irish which is part of my descent. I'm Irish, Dutch, German, English and Norman as far as I know. I'm saving to take an Ancestry.com DNA test. I would like to know. No one knows where my ggggg however many grandfathers place of origin is but his wife was Dutch. He was found as a baby that survived a ship wreck in the Netherlands so we simply don't know where he was from. He lived in the 1700s. Anyway more on the Irish. I'm trying to find an article that goes into what other markers showed even though it was predominantly Basque not everyone was as high as those on the western coast of Ireland.



From what I have read about the Basque culture I'm not surprised that they are not finding too many that would have intermarried the Keltoi.



Irish origin myths confirmed by modern scientific evidence



One of the oldest texts composed in Ireland is the Leabhar Gabhla, the Book of Invasions. It tells a semi-mythical history of the waves of people who settled in Ireland in earliest time. It says the first settlers to arrive in Ireland were a small dark race called the Fir Bolg, followed by a magical super-race called the Tuatha de Danaan (the people of the goddess Dana).



Most interestingly, the book says that the group which then came to Ireland and fully established itself as rulers of the island were the Milesians - the sons of Mil, the soldier from Spain. Modern DNA research has actually confirmed that the Irish are close genetic relatives of the people of northern Spain.



While it might seem strange that Ireland was populated from Spain rather than Britain or France, it is worth remembering that in ancient times the sea was one of the fastest and easiest ways to travel. When the land was covered in thick forest, coastal settlements were common and people travelled around the seaboard of Europe quite freely.



I live in Northern Ireland and in this small country the differences between the Irish and the British can still seem very important. Blood has been spilt over the question of national identity.



However, the lastest research into both British and Irish DNA suggests that people on the two islands have much genetically in common. Males in both islands have a strong predominance of Haplogroup 1 gene, meaning that most of us in the British Isles are descended from the same Spanish stone age settlers.



The main difference is the degree to which later migrations of people to the islands affected the population's DNA. Parts of Ireland (most notably the western seaboard) have been almost untouched by outside genetic influence since hunter-gatherer times. Men there with traditional Irish surnames have the highest incidence of the Haplogroup 1 gene - over 99%.



At the same time London, for example, has been a mutli-ethnic city for hundreds of years. Furthermore, England has seen more arrivals of new people from Europe - Anglo-Saxons and Normans - than Ireland. Therefore while the earliest English ancestors were very similar in DNA and culture to the tribes of Ireland, later arrivals to England have created more diversity between the two groups.



Irish and Scottish people share very similar DNA. The obvious similarities of culture, pale skin, tendancy to red hair have historically been prescribed to the two people's sharing a common celtic ancestry. Actually it now seems much more likely that the similarity results from the movement of people from the north of Ireland into Scotland in the centuries 400 - 800 AD. At this time the kingdom of Dalriada, based near Ballymoney in County Antrim extended far into Scotland. The Irish invaders brought Gaelic language and culture, and they also brought their genes



Irish Characteristics and DNA



The MC1R gene has been identified by researchers as the gene responsible for red hair as well as the accompanying fair skin and tendency towards freckles. According to recent research, genes for red hair first appeared in human beings about 40,000 to 50,000 years ago.



These genes were then brought to the British Isles by the original settlers, men and women who would have been relatively tall, with little body fat, athletic, fair-skinned and who would have had red hair. So red-heads may well be descended from the earliest ancestors of the Irish and British.



http://www.sott.net/article/263587-DNA-shows-Irish-people-have-more-complex-origins-than-previously-thought

I was reading a lot about the Irish and before given that name more or less and decided to read some of the newer DNA studies. It was an eye opener. I guess all those groups calling themselves Celtic this or that will be, I don't know, a little disturbed. Seems that they only adopted language and customs from the Celts for the most part but did not procreate with many of them and in some areas not at all. I haven't found out if there is any percentage in some but mostly it shows Basque and not Celt from these studies. Everyone doing the studies are very surprised.



" Damian Corless. "DNA blueprint of the Irish revealed." Irish Independent (September 11, 2010). This article is based on research by Brendan Loftus of University College Dublin, whose "research team [...] mapped the complete genetic code of an Irish person for the first time." Researchers hope that analysis of the Irish genome will help to explain why Irish people are susceptible to particular disorders and try to find preventative measures and cures for those disorders. Excerpts from the article:



"[...] Ireland's geography has had a huge part to play in shaping the nature of our society and our closest family ties. According to Loftus: 'The geographic isolation of Ireland over generations would affect the size of the gene pool by limiting the type and number of potential mating partners.' Major genetic surveys of Ireland and Britain have established that the gene pool of both islands is amongst the least diluted in Europe. The genetic evidence shows that three quarters of the ancestors of the Irish and British people were the pioneering settlers who arrived at the end of the last ice age between 17,000 and 8,000 years ago. The inescapable upshot of this is that the Irish are not Celts, any more than the English are Anglo-Saxons. In fact, both the Irish and the British are Basques, with the Irish significantly more Basque than our neighbours across the pond, who've absorbed more migrations from Europe over the centuries. Scientists estimate that Ireland's gene pool has changed remarkably little since the first hunter-gatherers from Iberia followed the retreating ice cap, beachcombing northwards and settling this newly exposed and empty land. The dilution rate for Ireland is estimated at a tiny 12%, against 20% for Wales and Cornwall, 30% for Scotland and 33% for England. [...] Ancient Irish legends say that there were six invasions or migrations from the south many generations before the Celts arrived around 300BC. The evidence suggests that the Celtic language, fashions and technologies which are supposed to define our Irish heritage, were acquired as cultural accessories [...] The Irish and Basques share by far the highest incidence of the R1b gene in Europe, which has a frequency of over 90% in Basque country and almost 100% along parts of Ireland's western seaboard. If further proof were needed, there's the physical fact that the Basques are distinguished by a very high incidence of fair (and some reddish) hair, pale skin, blue eyes, and, apparently, sticky-out ears. Sound like anyone you know? [...]"



Nicholas Wade. "English, Irish, Scots: They're All One, Genes Suggest." The New York Times (March 5, 2007). Geneticist Stephen Oppenheimer of the University of Oxford used genetic evidence to disprove the traditional historical narrative that the Irish people are mainly Celts and that they're very distinct from Englishmen. Oppenheimer suggested, rather, that most of the ancestors of Irish, Scottish, Welsh, and English people came from Spain about 16,000 years ago and that their original language was related to Basque."



http://www.khazaria.com/genetics/irish.html