More Basque DNA Research in Boise

This note comes to us via Boise's 2News:

Basque students gather DNA in the West

By Associated Press

BOISE (AP) - The research station was simple, a folding table parked on the front lawn of a small brick house that sheltered some of the first Basque sheepherders to immigrate to Idaho in the early 1900s.

But then Adrian Odriozola explains why he's traveled about 5,300 miles from his home in Spain to be here, at a Basque festival in downtown Boise, and it gets quite a bit more complicated.

"We are trying to improve the health of the population," said Odriozola, a doctoral student from the University of the Basque Country in Spain.

Odriozola was sent to the United States in early July to collect DNA samples from descendants of the Basque families that left their historically troubled homeland, where the Pyrenees Mountains separate Spain from France, and immigrated to a states such as Idaho, Nevada and California.

The goal: Collect enough DNA to support one of the most comprehensive genetic maps of the ethnic minority.

The University of the Basque Country is funding the research and hopes to explain why large portions of Basques living in their homeland suffer from diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, and learn why diabetes is more prevalent among Basques living in the United States.

Odriozola and his research partner, 27-year-old history student Eneko Sanz, spent several weeks at festivals in California, Nevada and here in Idaho, where some 15,000 Basques live and make up the third-largest population in the world, behind Argentina and the Basque homeland on the Spanish-French border.

"Sometimes, it's difficult," Odriozola said, "at a festival people want to party."

The day was still early when he stationed himself at his makeshift research station at the San Inazio Basque Festival in Boise. Odriozola surveyed the block of bars and restaurants, a neighborhood where Basque descendants congregate each year to honor Saint Ignatius.

The Boiseko Gasteak Basque Dancers wouldn't perform for several more hours. Clear plastic cups were filled, for the most part, with nonalcoholic drinks.

And Odriozola, a 26-year-old foreigner who would spend the day persuading Basque descendants to gargle a vial of pink, cinnamon flavored mouthwash and fill out a 50-question survey about their health, was optimistic.

"This will be our strong day," he said.

As the festival rolled out live music, food and dancing, and then waned into the evening, Odriozola and Sanz had collected nearly 100 samples from people like Louise Murgoitio Gunderson. Her grandparents immigrated from the Basque homeland near the end of the 1800s.

"It was a hard life in Spain," said Gunderson, a 56-year-old budget officer with the U.S. Attorney's Office in Boise.

She swigged down the pink vial of mouthwash, swished it around in her mouth for 10 seconds, and then spit the liquid back into the clear vial before she started filling in a detailed survey about her and her family's health. Did any of her relatives have a blood disorder? What about tumors? Skin diseases?

The process took about 10 minutes and Gunderson became "USA169-BOIDV2" in the study, where names are kept anonymous and vials will be identified by coded stickers and studied at a DNA bank at the University of the Basque Country.

There, researchers will try to determine whether environment or genetics played a role in how Basques descendants developed diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and diabetes.

But first, the samples will be processed at a lab at Boise State University, where graduate student Mike Davis is also studying Basque DNA for his master's thesis. Davis helped Odriozola and Sanz gather DNA in Idaho.

Altogether, the team collected about 400 samples from Nevada, California and Idaho before Odriozola and Sanz left the United States in late July to return to Spain to process the data they've collected so far. The pair will travel to Latin America later this year to collect more DNA samples.

Few migrant populations present such a perfect test case for explaining whether genetics or the environment is a bigger factor in why large numbers of Basque have developed certain diseases, Davis said. The Basque offer a tight-knit population, essentially identical when it comes their DNA, but living in two different countries.

"They've always had this sort of mystery about them," Davis said, "their language, nobody really knows where it came from."

Linguists and historians haven't been able to define the origin of the Basque language, called Euskera, and it has no definite link to any other widely spoken tongues in Europe, said John Bieter, acting director of the Basque Studies Center at Boise State University.

"This leaves the Basque as kind of a mysterious group," Bieter said, "studying their DNA may be one way to unravel that mystery."

The AP finally acknowledges the Basque people as an ethnic group, that's a first one.

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Basque DNA Research in Boise

This not comes to us via Idaho News Now:

Researchers gather DNA from Idaho Basques

by Ysabel Bilbao

BOISE -- Idaho’s largest ethnic group will be celebrating this weekend on Boise’s Basque block.

While a festival for some, it will be an experiment for others.

This block will fill with people for the annual San Inazio Basque Festival.

While Basques enjoy the celebration, two research students from the University of the Basque Country will be gathering DNA for medical research.

For many the Basque Center is a place to have a drink with friends, but this week it’s turned into part bar and part research lab.

Ph.D. students from the University of the Basque Country, Adrian Odriozola and Eneko Sanz, are taking DNA samples from local Basques as part of a worldwide research project.

The two have gathered samples from hundreds of Basques living in Idaho, Nevada, and California.

Each person gargles a liquid, which collects cells from the sides of people’s cheeks.

From the back of the bar their work is then transferred to a lab at Boise State University.

It's here under the guidance of Dr. Greg Hampikian, that Odriozola and his American counterpart Michael Davis extract DNA samples.

"We are trying to establish a collection of Basque Community DNA around the world. And in Boise there are a lot of Basque in Idaho, it's a strong DNA, Basque community," said Odriozola.

It's that strong community and strong genetic link to the old country that has drawn the researchers abroad. Dr. Hampikian says the best form of genetic research comes from twins separated at birth. Studying their DNA helps researchers know if disease or illness comes from nature or nurture.

Studying the Basque here and in their homeland provides that on a much larger scale.

"Finding two populations that have the same genetics that are located in different places is a huge benefit to all of humanity," said Hampikian.

The research students are focusing their studies on Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases, but their research will include a variety of illnesses, including heart disease, cancer and diabetes.

"We want to establish a strong collection about the Basque community, not only for use in DNA Bank, we want to offer this to the scientific community," said Odriozola.

"These types of studies are ongoing, not just with Europeans or the Basques, but really a worldwide phenomena," said Michael Davis, BSU graduate student.

The Basque researchers will leave Boise next week and head back to the Basque country to input data.

Afterward, they will continue traveling to Central and South America to collect DNA samples from Basques living there.

My only question is, are you to do this before or after your first kalimotxo?

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Role Model?

Kosovo is in the news, and is not all cheers and flag waving anymore.

Here you have an excerpt from an article appeared at Spiegel:

Breakaway Role Model

Separatist Movements Seek Inspiration in Kosovo

By Stephan Orth, Nadine Michel and Maike Jansen

Kosovo is turning out to be a huge source of conflict, both in the Balkans and across Europe. Six EU member states are against recognizing Kosovo's independence, because they fear it could lead to problems with their own ethnic minorities.

It was probably the most important day of Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci's term in office. After issuing the new country's declaration of independence on Sunday, Thaci announced in the capital, Pristina, that his country is now an official member of the "European family."

But in the excitement of that historic moment, it probably didn't occur to him that it is sometimes a rather moody and divided family. Only a few hours later, Europe's lack of unanimity over recognizing Kosovo revealed what a heterogeneous entity Europe still is.

It also raises the question of whether such a divided Europe will ever be capable of conducting an effective joint common foreign policy. Serbia withdrew its ambassadors from Germany and Austria Wednesday, after Berlin and Vienna recognized Kosovo as an independent nation. Then, on Thursday, Serbian protesters rioted in Belgrade, setting fire to the US Embassy.

While Denmark, Austria, France and Great Britain hold similar positions on Kosovo's independence, the EU countries that have minority conflicts of their own are opposed to Kosovo's secession from Serbia. They fear that their separatist groups could choose to emulate developments in the Balkans.

But what are these conflicts, and why has resolving them proved to be so difficult? SPIEGEL ONLINE profiles six countries that are refusing to toe the EU line.

Spain: The Basques and the Catalans

The Spanish central government in Madrid fears that Basque separatists could see Kosovo's declaration of independence as a precedent and as new fuel for their cause. Thus, it comes as no surprise that Spain was one of the first EU countries to announce that it would not recognize the independence of the small Serbian province.

In early 2008, the Basque terrorist organization ETA announced that it would make its future actions dependent on the situation in Kosovo. ETA's goal is to liberate the Basque region from what it calls Spanish "occupiers" and to establish an independent, socialist Basque nation. It was established in 1959 as a military resistance group against Spanish dictator Francisco Franco, who had banned the use of the Basque language and done everything in his power to suppress the Basque minority. There are 3 million Basques today, 2.5 million of them living in the northwest Spanish Basque region and the rest in the southwestern tip of France. The conflict, however, has transpired mainly on Spanish soil.

In 1979, after the end of the Franco dictatorship, the Basques were granted substantial autonomy. But this wasn't enough for ETA, which continues to fight for complete independence using bombings and intimidation campaigns as its preferred tools. The group's struggle has already claimed more than 800 lives.

Another minority group in Spain, the Catalans, also wants more than the autonomous status it was granted in 1978. About 7.2 million people live in the Catalan region in northeast Spain, which has the country's strongest economy. Catalonia has had autonomous status since the 18th century. It wasn't long ago that Josep-Lluís Carod-Rovira, the head of the Republican Left party and the deputy of regional President Jose Montilla, demanded a referendum on independence by 2014.

But the difference between the Basque country and Catalonia, on the one hand, and Kosovo, on the other, is that these regions, despite their continued efforts to gain independence, already enjoy substantial rights of autonomy.

In Madrid, the government's decision not to recognize Kosovo could also affect domestic politics -- general elections will take place in Spain on March 9.

Continues...

One thing though, Spain's real fear is to finally having to let go of their colonialist past. If Euskal Herria, Catalonia, Galiza and the Canaries are today longing for independence is because the Spaniards have refused to keep up with times. Yesterday it was cool to show to the world that you were able to conquer other nations, today is not so cool, you come across as an aggresive state unable to establish even level relationships with your neighbors.

Now, what is new about this article is the usage of the term "ethnic" never before applied to the Basques. Personally, I don't like it, Euskal Herria is a plural society and you do not need to have a certain DNA composition to be a Basque.

The author also misses the points when he applies the label "separatists" to the Basques. As it happens, today the Basques are separated, they live in three different political entities and two different states. If anything, the Basques are unionists, they all want to live together in the same independent and sovereign country, one that includes the seven provinces today identified as their historic territory. They never willingly joined Spain nor France, so you can not separate anything that was never part of something else by own accord.

Regarding the autonomy, let us remember that the reason why Kosovo declared independence unilaterally was because they did not accept the Serbian offer of more autonomy. So why suddenly it is so bad that the Basques do not want to settle for Spain's offer of autonomy? Remember, what you bestow you are always allowed to take away, so the Basques can not put all their hopes on an autonomy that could be removed by Madrid in the future. Remember, Aznar already threatened with such measure not too long ago.

The article misleads the readers, it tries to tell them that the conflict started when ETA decided to say enough to Franco's crimes in Euskal Herria (Franco's crimes were very similar to those of Milosevic in Kosovo by the way). That is a complete lie, the truth is that the Basques have been fighting to regain their full sovereignty for the last five hundred years.

And by the way, why does the article mentions the deaths caused by ETA but not the ones caused by Franco? Or the ones caused by the KLA/NLA?

Maybe because the violence generated by the UCK was something Washington needed to play it geopolitical games in the region and end up with complete control of the region surrounding their Bondsteel military base?

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Basque or Welsh?

Here you have some additonal information about a note that was published last year in which DNA studies point out at a Basque origin for the inhabitants of the Brittish islands.

This was published at icWales:

Basque-ing in Welsh DNA

Jan 16 2007

Western Mail

New DNA research claims we may have more in common with the English than we thought - we both descend from Basques. Perhaps that explains the swarthy Welsh looks, says Catherine Jones

LIKE a miner or a steelworker, many of the Welsh have got one of them somewhere in their family tree.

Yes, a picture of someone who has the dark eyes, hair and colouring of a "foreigner" - often causing the family to think there must have been some "exotic" influence way back when.

The Welsh sometimes seem easily categorised on a superficial level. You either have the dark, swarthy customers with near-black eyes or the pale- skinned, finer-boned lot with beautiful, startling blue eyes.

Pair the two together in a marriage and you can still get a brood with the curly dark locks, insolent dark eyes and chunky brown limbs of one of those spoilt Mediterranean fat kids you see running about piazzas in the evenings.

How many Welsh families like to have a bit of a joke about something "rum" in one of the parents' family trees?

How else to explain the fact their children turn "black" in a bit of sun and all get mistaken for French/Spanish/Italian depending on which country is the holiday destination of choice?

The more fun the family, the better the story they concoct to explain the beady black eyes staring out of a sepia family photo.

"Looks like a Portuguese sailor," say some, looking round at the modern-day mob with their pale eyes and skin, and wondering where the heck he came from. Or where they came from.

Perhaps one parent - usually fair-skinned - makes mischief with haughty references to "your father's family", as though it's awash with Romanian Gypsies who "came over" in wagons to flog pegs.

Or, if you hail from West Wales, there's the Spanish ships wrecked on Pembrey Sands routine.

If you come from Llanelli and you're dark of skin and eye, you've probably heard the one about the Italian ice cream parlour owners - and how your Great Aunty May got taunted at school for looking like a senorita.

But what is the truth of our origins? Over to Professor Stephen Oppenheimer of Oxford University, who says some 81% of the Welsh have DNA evidence which shows a common link to ancestors who came to Britain from northern Spain many thousands of years ago.

In fact, many Britons share a gene pool that can be traced back to Basque. Around three-quarters of the Welsh, Scots and English can be traced to those who arrived from the Basque country between 7,500 and 15,000 years ago.

Based on research into DNA studies across the UK and Ireland over the past 10 years, the professor's theory on British origins challenges mainstream historical views. And it might horrify those who like to think they are a distinct race apart from the English.

Most people in Scotland, Ireland and Wales were assumed to be descended from Celtic farming tribes who migrated here from central Europe up to 6,500 years ago. The English were thought to largely take their genetic line from the Anglo-Saxon invaders of the Dark Ages who supposedly wiped out the Celts in England.

Continues...

So, there you have it, one more reason to ensure that Europe's oldest indigenous culture does not get erased by the occupying neighbors.

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Neanderthals Not Our Cousins

I know by now you are thinking, man this crazy individual finally forgot about the Basques, it has been weeks since he mentioned anything about it, well, recess is over, and get this one, from Yahoo News:

We may not be cousins to Neanderthals, after all: study

David Noel

What happened to the Neanderthals?

From a combination of old and new evidence, it appears that at last we have a satisfactory answer to the age-old question of 'What Happened to the Neanderthals?'. If the current reasoning is correct, their descendants are still with us, and we call them the Basques.

This theory therefore simultaneously answers a second age-old question, 'What is the Origin of the Basques'?

Robert J Sawyer has recently published his book "Hominids" [2], a fictional account of an interaction between Sapiens humans and Neanderthals, but drawing on the latest scientific research about Neanderthals.

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 like antibodies, and if blood containing one or both of them is transferred to a person whose blood does not already contain them, adverse reactions occur. Group O blood contains neither antibody 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 foetus, 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 haemolytic 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 neighbours. 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.

REFERENCES

[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.
http://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:
http://www.aoi.com.au/matrix/Mat04.html.

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

[6] Blood of the
Gods.http://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? httpp://www.clan-
blackstar.com/research/basque.html.

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

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

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Book About DNA

One of the many lies you often hear about Basque nationalism is that it is a racist movement, Nothing farther from the truth. The modern Basque nationalism is built upon the right of a people to its self determination. A broader description of nation tells us that they are formed by a group of people with similar geographic, cultural, historic, religious and linguistic background. The ethnic composite may play a roll in some places, but not in the Basque Country, let us remember that the Basques call themselves "euskaldunak", the "Euskara speakers"... Euskara being the Basque language.

This is why I present to you this article from the Taipei Times:

Following DNA's footprints makes for a fascinating journey

Racial purity gets little encouragement in a book that sees humanity for all its diversity, as deriving from a primordial Eve

By Bradley Winterton
CONTRIBUTING REPORTER

Sunday, Oct 27, 2002, Page 18

Written history relates exactly how people of European ancestry came to be living in Australia or North America. But how did the Chinese come to be in China, the Indians in India, and the Australian Aborigines in Australia? This fascinating book, by deducing ancient human migration patterns from a study of the DNA of present populations, offers new answers to these old questions.

For over century, ethnographers seeking to understand the histories of different human groups relied on the evidence of old bones and pottery, together with what was shown by language. But for the last 20 years a molecular study of living people has provided a different kind of evidence. Central to such research are what are called "markers" in the Y-chromosomes carried by all males. These are mutations that have occurred at a particular point in time in a single male individual, and are subsequently passed down from father to son. They have been numbered, and a discussion of the significance of the M45, the M175 and so on, all nowadays very extensive, is at the heart of this intriguing book.

It was demonstrated a decade ago by the same means that, astonishing as it may seem, all human beings descend from a single woman, a primordial "Eve," who lived in Africa around 150,000 years ago. Now it is possible to trace the histories of the various human subgroups, and so piece together an understanding of when they migrated from Africa to where their core populations are still found today.

This line of research demonstrates, for instance, that Australia's Aborigines arrived in Australia along a route following the coast of southern Asia 60,000 years ago, long before the present inhabitants of most of Asia got to where they are.

The population of modern Europe, too, can be shown to have arrived, not by a seemingly direct route from Africa via the Middle East, but from Central Asia, and at a comparatively recent date.

The Chinese are shown to have almost certainly arrived in China in two streams, one north of the Himalayas, the other south. Chromosome marker differences can still be detected that separate many inhabitants of northern China from their southern counterparts.

As for the Native American populations, north and south of the equator, it's likely these arrived, crossing from Siberia to Alaska, in two waves. The first penetrated to the south, while the second was content to remain in the north. But neither population is likely to have been in the Americas longer than 15,000 years. And it is quite possible they all descend from a few dozen, or at most one or two hundred, founding individuals.

Many other things are demonstrated by this research. The successful extraction in 1997 of DNA sequences from Neanderthal remains, for instance, proves beyond doubt that this was a separate species from modern man. The claim that Europeans evolved separately, from part-Neanderthal ancestors, is here finally put to rest.

With regard to Europeans, the key marker here is the M137, dated as originating around 30,000 years ago. It is found with exceptional frequency in modern Irish and Basque populations, suggesting the earliest migrants moved, or were later pushed, furthest west.

Nineteenth century studies in language confirm this. Basque, for example, is unrelated to any other European language.

Ideas of "racial purity" get no encouragement from this book. Our common origin is in fact one of its central themes. But such ideas have a long history, and the Nazis were not the only people to embrace them. There was a strong push in 20th century China, for example, both Republican and Communist, to claim a specific Chinese racial identity and history. Rather than descending from African forebears, the Chinese, it was argued, may have evolved on their own direct from Homo Erectus, an earlier hominid whose remains have been found not far from Beijing.

This claim is entirely dismissed by DNA research. The Chinese are no more descended from a regional forebearer than Europeans are descended from a Neanderthal one. We all derive from ancestors who left Africa 10, 20, 40 or 50 thousand years ago.

These minute DNA variations are of outstanding value in the search for mankind's origins, but they have a dark side too. They mean, at least in theory, that DNA-specific biological weapons could be developed, fine-tuned to affect only people of a specific ethnicity. There is some evidence that this terrifying prospect may be only just round the corner.

In one current conflict zone such a weapon would be difficult to perfect, however. The DNA patterns of Arabs and the majority of Israelis are so close that researchers, however fiendish, would be hard pressed to target the other grouping exclusively.

As usual, there are some things to be said on one side and some things on the other. The way many nations see ethnic diversity as an impediment to unity, for example, can be deplored. Villagers are relocated, the language of the majority becomes compulsory in schools, and before long the young from these minorities actually feel embarrassed to admit to their heritage. This is a route on which minority cultures die, and with them all identifiable traces of humanity's diverse origins.

On the other hand, the ethnic mix that is already a feature of urban centers, and that the modern ease of mobility is certain to make more common, rather than being seen as lamentable (as exponents of racial purity would have it) can be viewed as highly desirable. Biological weapons targeted at a specific racial group could only be feasible when the ethnic groupings are separate and distinct. Inter-breeding of ethnicities makes biological weapons aimed at specific groups outdated before they are even a reality.

Such areas of thought, however, are not this book's main preoccupation. Human brotherhood is what it primarily demonstrates. Racial hatred, let alone inter-racial war, is something a contemplation of its contents ought to consign to the garbage collector's wagon.

The book is magnificently illustrated with photographs by Mark Read. What makes his pictures so special is that, rather than being of "tribal" peoples in the way we have become accustomed to in works of ethnography, they are of modern men -- in baseball caps worn back-to-front, broad-brimmed outback hats, or knitted rasta scull-caps. This makes the book's central statements as to who we are and where we came from even more relevant than, to anyone who thinks about it, they are already.

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