they tend to look very "exotic", almost Middle Eastern or Hispanic.
they tend to look very "exotic", almost Middle Eastern or Hispanic.
Genetically they are closely related to the Irish & Welsh. I think they are the longest inhabitants of Europe or at least Western Europe. The Basque Country lies in northwestern Spain. I don't know if the Basque you referred to (looking like Middle Easterners or Hispanics) are fullblooded Basque from Spain or New World Hispanic of Basque descent with other ancestry, like Castilian or Andalusian, or non-Europid like Ameridian or African.
^ The late Senator Paul Laxalt, R-Nevada (with Ronald Reagan), the only American Basque I can think of at the moment.
The preponderance of the DNA testing done on Basques indicates that they are descended from the R1Bxxxx Haplogroup which wintered over in the Northwest corner of Spain and Southwest corner of France during the last Glacial event. After this event, this haplogroup remigrated North to the Altlantic, Channel and North Sea Areas founding and creating most, if not all of the Socio-Political and cultural groups of Western Europe. This Haplogroup, R1bxxxxx, is the prevalent Haplogroup in Western Europe. The Basques having stayed in Northwest Spain/Southwest France.
To question the "whiteness" of Basques is too question the "whiteness" of Western Europeans. Which makes no sense.
Most speculation about Basque distinctiveness is because they have a strange language and that unusual bloodgroup more typical of Native Americans. In the past this single trait was thought to be of much more significance than it really is.
Modern genetics puts Basques between the European hunter gatherers and a Sardinian race arriving from the east. The proportions of these components is unusual among Basques, but they are obviously Southwest Europeans. Whereas former craniometrists had searched in vain for some special Basque race of men nowadays they don't seem unique, mostly a brachycranialised Atlanto-Mediterranean derivative demonstrating Bell Beaker accretion.
Beaker Culture appears, as properly defined, in Iberia and it has Moroccan precedents. Racially the Beaker folk source resembled a dinaricised Mechta-Afalou. But they blended with the European Borrebies, incipient Nordics and such.
Basques are White as White can be. There is nothing exotic about Basques. They mostly belong to the Baskid phenotype restricted only to South-West Europe, while others are Atlanto-Mediterranean, Dinarid, Western Mediterranean, Alpinid and Berid. All those phenotypes are found within Southern and parts of Western Europe. They are in the majority dark-haired, dark-eyed and sharp-featured though a large minority (38%) have blond or light hair (red,dark blond,light brown, auburn, chestnut, etc...). Basques have one of the lowest Middle-Eastern admixtures in Europe!Originally Posted by Northern Paladin
Basques are significantly Neolithic (Sardinian-like) and pre-Neol. hunter gatherer. Of course that Neolithic race is Anatolian.
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