The Strange History of the Basque People | Ancient DNA, Migrations & Modern Identity

0:00 Speaker 1: Here we go. Dear listeners, grab your tiksapila, a glass

0:03 Speaker 1: of tiksakoli, and your best I can roll that are voice,

0:08 Speaker 1: because today on the Strange History Podcast, I'm taking you

0:11 Speaker 1: on a timeline trek from ice age caves to pink

0:15 Speaker 1: soos bars, from Bronze age DNA to Boise Idaho. Picture this.

0:21 Speaker 1: You're standing in a cool echoing cave on the Bay

0:24 Speaker 1: of Biscay. On the walls are horses painted twelve thousand

0:28 Speaker 1: to fifteen thousand years ago, ink black silhouettes, still glossy

0:33 Speaker 1: with mystery. Outside the Atlantic hammers the coast. Inside you

0:38 Speaker 1: can almost hear a whisper of words from a language

0:40 Speaker 1: that somehow survives to this day. Not Latin, not Celtic,

0:46 Speaker 1: not anything else in Europe. Uscura, the Basque language, stubborn, musical,

0:52 Speaker 1: and gloriously unlike its neighbors. Welcome to the Basque Country.

0:57 Speaker 1: I'm Amy your guide through the weird, wonderful corridors of time.

1:02 Speaker 1: Today we're tackling the ancient history of the Basque people.

1:05 Speaker 1: Who they are, where their DNA points, how migrations sculpted

1:10 Speaker 1: their story, and how that story marches straight into the present.

1:14 Speaker 1: If you're new here, hit follow and leave a review

1:18 Speaker 1: so our little podcast family can grow like a healthy oak,

1:21 Speaker 1: preferably the one in Gernica. We'll get to that.

1:25 Speaker 2: Deep time caves, cold and clues.

1:29 Speaker 1: The Basque Homeland hugs the western Pyrenees, a green, steep

1:34 Speaker 1: quilt of valleys that faces the Bay of Biscay. This

1:37 Speaker 1: corner of Europe is laced with ice Age art Ekane's

1:41 Speaker 1: Great Panel of Horses, Alcheri's by Soon and Santimamigne's galleries

1:47 Speaker 1: masterpieces of the Franco Cantabrian tradition. These caves testify to

1:52 Speaker 1: continuous human presence here through the last glacial periods and

1:57 Speaker 1: into the Holocenely, this region was a refuge during the

2:02 Speaker 1: Ice Age. Ancient DNA shows Iberian hunter gatherers retained lineages

2:07 Speaker 1: tied to the last glacial populations, with a distinctive Western

2:11 Speaker 1: hunter gatherer flavor that persisted especially in Iberia. That enduring

2:17 Speaker 1: Ice Age footprint helps explain why the human story here

2:20 Speaker 1: feels so old. Linguistically, we get a rare precious breadcrumb trail.

2:26 Speaker 1: Roman era inscriptions north of the Pyrenees preserved names in Aquitanian,

2:31 Speaker 1: widely regarded as closely related to ancestral Basque Protobasque. No

2:36 Speaker 1: full texts survive, but those names Andre Lady, baylex Crow,

2:43 Speaker 1: jaison Man, mirror Basque roots almost eerily. It's one of

2:48 Speaker 1: the clearest windows we have into Basque antiquity.

2:52 Speaker 3: Tired of boring vacations, forget Disney, Come spend three days

2:56 Speaker 3: staring at paleolithic horses in a damp cave just forty

3:00 Speaker 3: nine euros a night, You too can marvel at fifteen

3:03 Speaker 3: thousand year old graffiti that makes your kids stick figures

3:06 Speaker 3: look like trash. Basque cave tours because nothing says romance

3:12 Speaker 3: like a headlamp and batguano.

3:14 Speaker 2: Farmers, stepper riders, and the Basque genetic shape.

3:19 Speaker 1: Fast forward to the Neolithic. Around five thousand, seven hundred

3:24 Speaker 1: to five thousand, five hundred BCE, farmers from Anatolia spread

3:28 Speaker 1: along the Mediterranean into Iberia, mixing with local hunter gatherers. Later,

3:34 Speaker 1: during the Bronze Age, approximately two thousand, four hundred to

3:38 Speaker 1: two thousand BCE, newcomers with step ancestry swept into Iberia,

3:44 Speaker 1: causing a dramatic turnover in y chromosomes and introducing ancestry

3:48 Speaker 1: that would become standard across Western Europe. The marquee marker

3:52 Speaker 1: on the mail line here is R one B, especially

3:56 Speaker 1: the DF twenty seven branch, very common in Iberia and

4:00 Speaker 1: strikingly high among Basques. A major twenty nineteen time transsect

4:05 Speaker 1: of ancient DNA from Iberia made the picture far clearer.

4:10 Speaker 1: Present day Basques best match Iron Age Iberians, who had

4:13 Speaker 1: already absorbed Step ancestry, but unlike most of their neighbors,

4:18 Speaker 1: they missed later waves of gene flow Roman, Eastern Mediterranean,

4:22 Speaker 1: and North African that reshaped much of Iberia. That relative

4:27 Speaker 1: isolation not some mythic untouched. Since the Paleolithic story underlies

4:32 Speaker 1: the Basque genetic distinctiveness, think of it as a population

4:36 Speaker 1: that kept an older Iberian genetic profile while everyone else

4:40 Speaker 1: kept remixing. Basques share broad origins with neighboring Iberians, but

4:46 Speaker 1: long periods of reduced gene flow since the Iron Age,

4:50 Speaker 1: likely aided by language and mountainous geography, drove their differentiation.

4:56 Speaker 1: In short, its continuity plus isolation, not total separateness. As

5:02 Speaker 1: for that y DNA signature, the DF twenty seven branch

5:06 Speaker 1: likely rose to high frequency during after the Bronze Age,

5:10 Speaker 1: fitting with the big demographic shifts of that time. Among

5:14 Speaker 1: Basques it can reach seventy percent, while averaging forty percent

5:18 Speaker 1: across Iberia. Mitochondrial DNA maternal lines adds more texture. Subclades

5:25 Speaker 1: like H one and H three are common in the

5:28 Speaker 1: Franco Cantabrian area. Several lineages appear to have deep local

5:32 Speaker 1: histories here, suggesting long standing maternal continuity in the region.

5:37 Speaker 2: Vasconas and Rome, the Ager and the Saltus.

5:43 Speaker 1: By classical times, this landscape hosted tribes the Romans called Vascones, Karisti,

5:48 Speaker 1: Vardouli and Outragonis. Rome touched the Plaines, built roads, collected

5:54 Speaker 1: taxes the usual Empire starter pack, but mountain zones the

5:59 Speaker 1: Saltis remain aimed less Romanized than the lowland Ager. The

6:03 Speaker 1: result Basque communities that navigated Empire without losing their rugged

6:07 Speaker 1: autonomy or their language. Aquitanian personal names north of the

6:13 Speaker 1: Pyrenees and the Roman record south of them helped triangulate

6:17 Speaker 1: where early Basque Proto Basque speakers likely lived, even though

6:23 Speaker 1: the literary trail is thin. It's like mapping a vanished

6:27 Speaker 1: city from its manhole covers.

6:29 Speaker 3: Feeling a little gloomy, light up your medieval hovel with

6:33 Speaker 3: the finest lamp oil from whales You'll never meet again

6:36 Speaker 3: Basque whale oil illuminating Europe since the fifteen hundreds. Warning

6:42 Speaker 3: may cause fishy smell, slippery floors, and awkward questions from greenpeace.

6:47 Speaker 2: Oaks, oaths, and a kingdom in the mountains.

6:52 Speaker 1: In the early medieval period, the Kingdom of Pamplona later

6:55 Speaker 1: Navarre emerged in the Basque heartland. For centuries, Basque territories

7:01 Speaker 1: lived under fueros, local charters guarding customary rights. The symbol

7:06 Speaker 1: of those freedoms is the Tree of Gernica, under which

7:09 Speaker 1: lords and later leaders swore to respect biscuy and liberties.

7:14 Speaker 1: It's hard to find a cleaner emblem of identity than

7:16 Speaker 1: an oak promising we were here before you and we

7:20 Speaker 1: will be hereafter. In fifteen twelve, Castile conquered Upper Navarre

7:25 Speaker 1: south of the Pyrenees. The northern slice Lower Navarre later

7:30 Speaker 1: folded into France. The map changed, but Basque institutions and

7:35 Speaker 1: identities adapted, endured, and when possible, dug in their heels.

7:39 Speaker 3: Want to raise your kids bilingual? Too bad? At Franco's

7:44 Speaker 3: School of Silence, we specialize in one language. One anthem

7:48 Speaker 3: and one very long dictatorship, now with thirty percent more censorship.

7:53 Speaker 3: Franco school because nothing says fun like banning lullabies in Basque.

7:58 Speaker 2: Harpoons and her horizons Basques at sea.

8:03 Speaker 1: Basques didn't just look to the hills, They looked to

8:06 Speaker 1: the ocean. Basque shipwrights and sailors helped power the age

8:10 Speaker 1: of exploration. After Magellan died, the Basque navigator Juan Sebastian

8:15 Speaker 1: Elcano captained the expedition that completed the first circumnavigation of

8:20 Speaker 1: the globe in one thousand, five hundred twenty two, and

8:24 Speaker 1: in the fifteen hundreds, Basque whalers ran large seasonal stations

8:29 Speaker 1: as far away as Red Bay, Labrador, today a UNESCO

8:34 Speaker 1: World Heritage Site rendering whale oil for Europe's lamps, mountain

8:38 Speaker 1: people with serious sea legs.

8:41 Speaker 3: Dreaming of Idaho pastures. For only nineteen dollars. In ninety

8:45 Speaker 3: nine cents, you can get your authentic sheeprider starter kit,

8:49 Speaker 3: a crook, a beret, and a pecan punch recipe card.

8:53 Speaker 3: Some assembly required. Sheep not included.

8:57 Speaker 2: Wars, iron and the price of modernity.

9:01 Speaker 1: The eighteen hundreds were rough. The carlist war's convulsed northern Spain,

9:06 Speaker 1: and when the Third Carlist War ended in eighteen seventy six,

9:10 Speaker 1: Madrid abolished the Basque Fueros, a legal earthquake for communities

9:15 Speaker 1: that had relied on their charters for centuries. Almost at once,

9:19 Speaker 1: the region hurtled into industrialization. Bilbao's iron and steel shipyards

9:25 Speaker 1: and banks turned the estuary into one of Southern Europe's

9:28 Speaker 1: industrial powerhouses. Tradition met smokestacks, and both left deep marks.

9:35 Speaker 2: Fire and silence the twentieth century.

9:39 Speaker 1: On April twenty sixth, nineteen thirty seven, during the Spanish

9:43 Speaker 1: Civil War, the Basque town of Gernica, the symbolic heart

9:47 Speaker 1: of Basque liberties, was bombed by German and Italian planes.

9:52 Speaker 1: The attack shocked the world and inspired Picasso's Gernica, a

9:55 Speaker 1: stark howl against modern war. Under Franco nineteen thirty ane

10:00 Speaker 1: nine through nineteen seventy five, Basque language and culture were repressed.

10:04 Speaker 1: Public use was punished, Basque names banded, schools silenced. Out

10:10 Speaker 1: of this terrain grew both a fierce cultural resilience and

10:13 Speaker 1: on the militant fringe Eta, whose violence scarred thousands before

10:18 Speaker 1: the group disbanded in twenty eighteen. Meanwhile, the Democratic Transition

10:24 Speaker 1: brought a new settlement. The nineteen seventy nine Statute of

10:28 Speaker 1: Gernica restored wide autonomy, including co official status for Basque,

10:34 Speaker 1: and set up the modern basque institutions we see today.

10:38 Speaker 1: Just as pivotal linguists and educators built Uscara Batua standard

10:43 Speaker 1: Basque in the late nineteen sixties, giving a common written

10:47 Speaker 1: form to a highly dialectal language. That decision helped fuel

10:53 Speaker 1: a remarkable revival in schools, media, and public life.

10:57 Speaker 2: Across the Ocean Basque a Maria.

11:00 Speaker 1: In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, economic hardship

11:04 Speaker 1: pushed many basques to the American West, where they became

11:08 Speaker 1: legendary sheep herders and boarding housekeepers. Nowhere wears that history

11:13 Speaker 1: more proudly than Boise, Idaho, home to the Basque Bloc,

11:17 Speaker 1: the Basque Museum and Jayaldi, a massive festival held every

11:22 Speaker 1: five years. This year's was held July twenty ninth to

11:25 Speaker 1: August third, twenty twenty five. If you've ever wondered why

11:30 Speaker 1: Nevada's state drink is Pecan punch, well now you know.

11:34 Speaker 2: Today's basques autonomy innovation and the long.

11:39 Speaker 1: View Modern Basque country, The autonomous community of Uscatti in

11:43 Speaker 1: Spain plus Navarre and the three provinces in France mix's

11:48 Speaker 1: high tech industry, world class cuisine and deep traditions Bert

11:53 Speaker 1: solaritza improvised sung poetry, Polota courts and gastronomic societieties, alongside

12:01 Speaker 1: research hubs and a globally admired urban makeover in Bilbao. Politically,

12:07 Speaker 1: debates about identity and sovereignty continue, but within a framework

12:11 Speaker 1: of democratic autonomy and with Uscura very much alive and

12:15 Speaker 1: the genetic story the cutting edge continues to refine, but

12:19 Speaker 1: the chorus is consistent. Basques are not aliens beamed in

12:23 Speaker 1: from the Paleolithic. There are Western European people whose ancestors

12:27 Speaker 1: absorbed the same big prehistoric pulses Ice Age hunter gatherers,

12:32 Speaker 1: Neolithic farmers, Bronze Age step then spent the last approximately

12:38 Speaker 1: three thousand years relatively insulated from the later admixture that

12:42 Speaker 1: swept much of Iberia. AD Mountains, language, endogamy, and time,

12:46 Speaker 1: and you get a population that is both of Iberia

12:49 Speaker 1: and somehow set apart from it. So what do we

12:52 Speaker 1: make of it all? A language that outran empires, a

12:56 Speaker 1: people shaped by glaciers and bronze oaths under oth oaks

13:00 Speaker 1: and harpoons on the Labrador Coast, bombings that shocked the world,

13:04 Speaker 1: and books that rebuilt a tongue. The Basques remind us

13:08 Speaker 1: that history can be both granite and water, unyielding, an identity,

13:12 Speaker 1: fluid and survival.

13:14 Speaker 3: Ever been conquered by Rome. We've got a loyalty program

13:18 Speaker 3: for that with our Salt to Savor card. Every tenth

13:22 Speaker 3: rate into your mountain valley comes with a free amfer

13:24 Speaker 3: of wine, Roman roads and spa paving your countryside and

13:28 Speaker 3: your sense of autonomy since two hundred BCE.

13:32 Speaker 1: If you enjoyed this deep dive into the strange, stubborn,

13:35 Speaker 1: spectacular story of the Basque people, please follow the Strange

13:40 Speaker 1: History podcast, drop a rating and share this episode with

13:44 Speaker 1: the linguistics nerd or cave art fan in your life.

13:47 Speaker 1: I'm Amy escaric Asco for listening, and I'll see you

13:51 Speaker 1: next time.