LL-L "Anthropology" 2008.05.23 (06) [E]

Fri May 23 16:58:33 UTC 2008

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L O W L A N D S - L - 22 May 2008 - Volume 06
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From: Mike Wintzer <k9mw at yahoo.com>
Subject: LL-L "Anthropology" 2008.05.22 (03) [E]

Ron, just to let you know that there are at least 2 Lowlanders Mark and
myself absolutely FASCINATED by this.
I cannot wait for your (or someone else's) answer
and a possible ensuing discussion.
Greetings, Mike Wintzer

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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Anthropology

Dear Mike and Mark,

Contrary to your expectations, I don't really have any sort of well-founded
opinion on this (largely non-Lowlandic) matter, because my knowledge does
not go beyond general reading. But am willing to share some general thoughts
and ideas.

When it comes to the erstwhile even more multi-ethnic Iberian Peninsula,
there is a lot of guessing going on due to a scarcity of documentation other
than expectedly "officially biased" Roman ones. When it comes to the Basque
people and their genealogically isolated language, we know even less, and
this has inspired scores of people to come up with all manner hypotheses,
some wilder than others.

My supposition has all along been hat the Basque language is a remnant of an
otherwise extinct non-Indo-European language family, preserved because of a
combination of difficult terrain and "conservatism." Also, there are signs
that the Basque were at least at times in the Romans' good graces by
collaborating with them, and this may have protected them by virtue of
relative autonomy until the advent of French and Spanish nationalism. It may
even have given their language high status for some time.

Genetic research has shown that there are indeed some genetic "Basque
features," namely the highest global incidence level of *Rh-* blood type and
virtually no *B* blood type. This is believed to be a result of early
isolation. However, DNA research shows that the Basque are otherwise
"typical" for West Europeans. Furthermore, I have seen many different
physical types among people that are known to be Basque, certainly among
city dwellers. This and the mentioned findings indicate to me that, while
early Basque ancestors may have been isolated for a long period of time, the
general Basque population is of greatly mixed ancestry, assumable mixed
mostly with Romans, various pre-Roman Iberians and Occitanians, primarily
Gascones and Aquitanians (with whom they have a history of contacts,
including Basque influences on Aquitanian). Furthermore, the Romance
language varieties of Northeastern Spain have "suspiciously" strong
Basque-like phonologies, which seems to indicate even more widespread
contacts and mixing. Lastly, the Scandinavian-rooted Western Goths went
through at least a part of that region and must have "done their thing"
there, as they did in neighboring Occitania, Valencia and Catalonia, not to
mention Italy and other parts of Europe. For some reason -- perhaps
erstwhile high prestige under Roman rule -- the Basque language was
regionally so strong at one point in time that some neighboring
Occitan-rooted Gascone and Bearnais communities adopted it and developed
their own Basque dialects without significant absorption of Basque people.

However, there are various reports of swarthy, short and stocky Iberians,
including Basques. I can imagine that these were remnants of lesser-mixed
people of Iberia, possibly people that lived in particularly isolated
communities. As was not atypical in regions and countries that followed
Romanocentric traditions, the more mainstream "Roman" or "European" you were
in looks, culture and language the higher you were on the social totem pole,
and things haven't really changed all that much since then. So we are
talking about a form of racism here, which singles out populations of people
perceived as "backward country bumpkins" by physical features. The less you
were like them the better you could feel about yourself.

In other words, my general non-scientific assumption is that today's Basque
speakers are to a large extent of non-Basque descent but some "Basque
features" survive among them, especially in previously more isolated
communities. This may also explain the reportedly short, stocky stature of
16th- and 17th-century Basque whalers' skeletons unearthed in Southern
Labrador (http://www.wordplay.com/tourism/basque.html).

Looking at the case of Basque and at the cases of various other documented
peoples and languages of Iberia, I wish we had similar indications of what
people and languages there used to be in Northern Europe before the arrival
of the Indo-Europeans. All we find are bits of tools and pottery as well as
stone monuments and the widespread dolmens.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

•

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