Where do the Basko people (Spain) come from?

Question

If it is possible to read the genetic code and deduce the ancestry, it is possible to answer to this unsolved mystery?

Answer 1

it's not a mystery -- the basque are iberian celts, closely related to the celts of bretagne in france.  their relative genetic isolation is interesting -- when you look at the basque, you are seeing what people in france and iberian europe looked like in the roman times.

the isolation of the basque inhibited adoption of european tongues (ie: celtic, germanic, romanni, etc.) as these peoples began to blanket continental europe - tucked in their corner of the world they continued to speak the pre-indo european tongue euskera

Answer 2

Although the Basques were probably inhabiting the area they now do since the stone age, our oldest historical records come from the time of the Romans. Around 75 B.C., the Romans established the city of Pamplona as a regional center. The Basques seem to have come down from the hills to trade with the Romans, but the Romans seem never to have extended actual control of the Basques living in the hills. The Basques living on the plain around Pamplona probably adapted to the Roman presence, but we don't know to what extent.

Around  830 century A.D., toward the end of the tumultuous period that followed the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, the Kingdom of Navarre (Nafarroa in Basque), centered in Pamplona, came into being. Originally this kingdom covered all of modern Navarre, plus the three Vascongadas (Gipuzkoa, Bizkaia, Araba), the modern French Basque country, and into neighboring areas in modern Spain. Navarre was not conquered by the moors. Navarre was probably not a "Kingdom of the Basques", but it was a kingdom whose dominant ethnic group were the Basques.

Through the high and late middle ages Navarre gradually lost bits of its territory through various dynastic marriages and inheritances. Between 1200 and 1332, the three Vascongadas placed themselves in allegiance to the crown of Castille. By 1500 the Basques lived in three kingdoms: Navarre, Spain, and France. In 1515 Navarre was divided and absorbed into Spain and France along the current border (more or less).

In Spain, the Basques, especially those of the Vascongadas, retained special "fueros", privileges of self-governance and local assemblies for that purpose. The Basques were not individually subjects of the crown, but rather as a group subject to the crown (as long as they resided in the Vascongadas). In the 1800's a series of civil wars were fought in Spain (the "Carlist Wars") between factions who either sought to retain the medieval legal structure of Spain, or to reform it using the principles of the French Revolution. Rural Basques sided with the more conservative faction of King Carlos V in order to preserve the fueros. They lost. Many Basques fled Spain after these conflicts.

There is so much more about the Basques on the website

www.buber.net/Basque/History

Answer 3

There's no mystery. Basques are Celts who inhabited the "Pirineos" or "Pyréneés" mountains - at the Spanish and French sides - during the Roman Empire. They got isolated at the mountains and developed their own culture. Their language is "Euskerra" a pre Indo-European language. Since ever, they claim for their autonomy, and constitute an independent country.

Answer 4

I may remember wrong, but seem to recall the Euskara language had been described as more similar to finno-ugric, perhaps that's changed or just plain wrong. There's so much dispute about which are and aren't in that group - who knows.

What we do know is that folks sure do get around. Nothing new there about us.

Answer 5

They probably have been there at least since the ice and cold from the last Ice Age retreated back north.