DNA analysis showed that the Basques are not descendants of the ancient inhabitants of Europe – hunter-gatherers displaced in the mountains of northern Spain migrated from the Middle East farmers. Despite the uniqueness of their language, the Basques found themselves descendants of the first wave of migration of farmers (about 7500 years ago), to further isolate itself from the new settlers. The study is published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Unlike other European languages (Indo-European and Finno-Ugric), the Basque language is an isolate – it does not have any undisputed relative among languages of the world. This led scientists XIX-XX centuries, the idea that Basques – descendants of the ancient people of Europe. Reinforce this hypothesis some genetic research: the Basques found a number of characteristics that distinguish them from the rest of Europe (such as increased frequency of negative Rh factor).
However, the Swedish geneticists led by Mattias Jakobsson (Mattias Jakobsson) denied this hypothesis. Scientists have sequenced the genomes of the owners of eight skeletons found in the caves of El Portalon in the north of Spain. According to archaeologists, people began to live in this cave about 30 thousand years ago and no longer only in the late middle ages.
09:17 July 2, 2014
Drevneispanskaya protection
Archaeologists have explored one of the most powerful urban centers in Europe Bronze Age
Genetics selected bone age – years 3500-5500 (on the border of the copper and bronze ages). Judging by the typical artifacts (pieces of pottery), they belonged to the farmers and not hunter-gatherers.
After extracting the DNA fragments and sequencing scientists compared the genomes of cave dwellers with the genomes of various ancient peoples of Europe (lived 5000-8000 years ago), as well as two thousand genomes of modern inhabitants of the continent. It turned out that in its modern Basques genes closest to the farmers from El Portalon, not the ancient hunter-gatherers.
Genetic peculiarities and uniqueness of the Basque language, says Jacobson, formed later. The ancestors of Basques have chosen to isolate themselves and stayed away from further waves of migration of farmers and herdsmen from Central Europe and North Africa (five thousand years ago). Genes last from 10 to 25 per cent of the genomes of modern Spanish and Portuguese, but the Basques.
However, the question remains the unique Basque language. Jacobson and his colleagues admit that it said those same farmers of the first wave, but do not rule out the possibility that the Basque settlers took from the ancient hunter-gatherers (and not to impose their own language).
No comments:
Post a Comment