One misconception is to assume that today’s y-DNA indicates origin of a population. Throughout history, male DNA was often replaces. Tribes were invaded by men who killed all the original men and enslaved the boys who often wound up dying due to poor treatment. The women were taken, so mtDNA didn’t get lost though make-up and frequencies changed.
The Basques are no different. Ancient burial grounds reveal 24% mtDNA K 5,000 years ago and considering today’s percentage being only around 4% it shows a trend that when reversed can indicate the origin of the original Basques. K originates in the fertile crescent. It is known as a Sumerian marker and most of all ancient Hebrew marker still present in 1/3rd of today’s Ashkenazi Jews.
Chances are the original Basques were a Sumerian tribe settling as far West until the ocean stopped them and later they were conquered by R1b (Celtic) tribes. It is therefore likely that the original Celts may not have been high in rh negative blood, but simply that they were conquering and mixing with a tribe that could have been 100% rh negative at one point… the Basques.
Around 16-27% of Ireland is rh negative and many parts are as high as 99% R1b. The Basques remain 1/3rd rh negative and that after 1,000s of years of mixing with neighbors.
Eupedia.com has been the cornerstone for genetic research for many years and founder Maciamo Hay has recently sent me the following synopsis explaining why it cannot possibly be that the original Basques were Celtic (R1b):
Regarding the Basques, there are several factors that make it impossible for them to have been R1b before the Indo-European invasions in the Bronze Age. The first is that there was no R1b-S116 (and subclades) in Western Europe before approx. 2200 BCE.(2500 BCE in East Germany). The second is that the Basques belong to young subclades of R1b-S116, such as M153, which is only 2900 years old (Hallstatt period) and most Basque members of M153 have a TMRCA of less than 2000 years (Roman period).
So who were the original Basques?
When asking Hay about what the original y-DNA of the original Basques could have been, his answer was:
They very probably had the same Y-DNA as those of Megalithic cultures. Several samples were tested in Spain and France and they were overwhelmingly I2a1 and I2a2, with a minority of G2a.
So where did I come from?
The place of origin of haplogroup I remains uncertain. It could have emerged in Europe or in the Middle East, but anyway it was about 40,000 years ago, long before agriculture. MtDNA J came to Europe in several waves. The Basques are mostly J1c, which is thought to have come with Neolithic farmers (so alongside Y-haplogroup G2a).
But could it be that also those markers have once replaced the original Basque ones?
J is the other y-DNA marker increasing in ancient burial sites. And the origin of mtDNA J is also in the the Fertile Crescent region of West Asia. Looking at the dominance of those two mtDNA markers 1,000s of years ago, it would be correct to assume that the original y-DNA of the Basques was a marker originating from the same area.
And it would also mean that likely the rh negative blood factor was imported from the East rather than seeing its origin in Western Europe.
You can read more here:
http://www.firetown.com/2017/11/06/half-ancient-basques-rh-negative/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basque_diaspora
https://www.eupedia.com/forum/threads/28386-How-did-the-Basques-become-R1b
Another question is why Native Americans are high in R1b, yet the rh negative blood factor among the original ones being completely absent. This R1b frequency of course may have come from Irish and Scottish settlers replacing much of the original Q originating in Asia.
But if indeed it came before, it would definitely indicate that the original Celts (R1b) probably had O rh negative blood as well. And it would furthermore enhance the theory that indeed Celtic men conquered rh negative tribes, killed the men, took the women and that today’s rh negatives are more or less offspring of such events.
So last but not least my question regarded my strong belief that the original group of Basques was from the Fertile Crescent where Maciamo expresses a different thought:
I think it is better to view Proto-Basques as the ethnic and cultural merger between G2a farmers and I2a hunter-gatherers. The two groups blended peacefully with one another from the arrival of farmers in Western Europe 7000 years ago and remained a single ethnic group until the arrival of the Proto-Celts maybe 3000 to 3800 years ago in Iberia. It’s impossible to know if Basque language was closer to the original G2a language or to the original I2a language. Anyway after thousands of years language evolve so much as to be almost unrecognizable.
All thoughts are welcome. Even when I disagree. And I do. There are many reasons including that such a mix would not justify today’s high rh negative frequencies among the Basques.
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I don’t know Mike but apparently we are both Basque, only I’m not so sure mine is right. In the results from CRI they gave me both mtDNA haplogroup ‘H’ and ‘Y’ Chromosome ‘R1b’ without any subclades. Just wide ranging maps for both. I’m thinking it’s a rip off with putting me as ‘Finnish’ like everyone that has their DNA done there.
So much missing in my known, recorded and written ancestral history left completely out. My surname is Sephardic Jewish Descent even recorded in the Holy Office of the Inquisition list of Jewish names. With ‘es’ and ‘ez’ added to denote ‘Of Zion’. Plus former property deeds in Porto, Portugal for inherited lands no member ever went to claim before being lost to the Government.
But I’d like to add that as far as Abraham Father of the Jewish 12 Tribes goes, he apparently was Sumerian genetically. Yet….. Joshua was Jewish (semitic) and they seem to share the same genetics apparently with the Canaanites of Jericho. Whose Hebrew alphabet was found in Jericho ruins as Proto-Hebrew. What do you know of that and the fact there were other cultures that seemed to be R1b or related Haplogroups in the near and middle east as well.
I’m not 100% Basque of course, but the highest percentage of Rh-d Negatives in Ireland is centered in County Cork, Ireland. Which just happens to be where my Grandmother O’Connell was born and raised. Which can trace it’s beginnings of surnames back to Murphy around 1000 BC. Who was also Rh-Negative like both my father and grandfather and apparently his father before him as being Portuguese w/ paternal surname Nunes and remember that makes it an ancient quite common surname of Nun or House of Nun or Son of Nun in Joshua’s day.
Everyone had a surname like Nun being connected to fisherman. Which brings me to the Basque said to be the original seafaring peoples of the mediterranean and ending up settling County Cork, Ireland. Oddly enough my other ancestral half is of Scottish Highlands Immigrant Henderson and French Immigrant Minard. On all of these there are several generations where surnames were of the lands they came from.
Now if CRI actually included subclades and other genetic location markers I could have validated what I already knew. But….. I’m getting hit with CRI apparently going for the GOLD!!! …..more than helping people figure out their ancestry. I have results coming from ‘Living DNA’ and they give you all three tests (Autosomal, mtDNA, ‘Y’ Chromosome) for one price and it includes Subclades! ….so forget about CRI if you want to find out anything about your ancestry.
I’m still trying to figure out how I could be Basque simply because my Light colored hair dad and granddad had blue eyes (no idea if he showed signs of his Rh-d Negative blood though in eye color. I just know that’s what’s on his old California Driver’s licenses and when I got married blood tests were required showing I was A- Rh-d Negative and my AB-negative son’s mother is B- Rh-negative. I know my son’s generation, mine, my father’s and his parents were, etc were all Rh-negative having been tested in the 40’s before they died. Putting Rh-negative running in the family born in the 1860’s to 1870’s and apparently if my Basque R1b Haplogroup and County Cork being settled by Basque rather than Celtic…. no wonder there are so many Rh-Negatives in my Ancestry. Otherwise Rh-negative isn’t so high in Portugal and I’m not sure about the Jewish side.
What I do know is Portugal like Spain is offering Portuguese Citizenship to those Jewish migrants who fled the Inquisition. Which includes Jewish relatives we have and know….. in Brazil and Argentina! …..I think they require knowledge of Ladino language, but my son knows it in his mix of languages and could qualify for Citizenship in Israel or Portugal! …..and I have more Jewish according to Nunes surname (CRI reported nothing, while others in the family have more jewish blood lineage than I expected) and practicing Jewish religion as well as knowledge of Ladino!
So….. my question is, did the original Basque come from Abraham as a Lost Tribe being of Sumerian mother or after being of Celtic lineage??? If Basque are of a Sumerian mother instead of Levant Semitics, and Abraham was actually genetically Sumerian….. that would sure put a wrench in the works!
Which means the 12 Tribes weren’t all Semitic Genetically, some Canaanites, some Sumerian, etc genetics and just spoke semitic languages or maybe not. Maybe the 12 tribes were more diverse than we thought and Moses’s Brother Aaron could probably attest to that! ….Golden Calf??? Sumerian!