A somewhat interesting paper on Basque genetics in a pan-European and Mediterranean perspective:
Kristin L. Young et al., Autosomal short tandem repeat genetic variation of the Basques in Spain. Croatian Medical Journal, 2011. Freely available at PubMed Central.
The authors studied allele frequencies for 9 autosomal STR loci (D3S1358, D5S818, D7S820, D8S1179, D13S317, D18S51, D21S11, FGA, and vWA) in Basques and other populations of Europe, West Asia and North Africa.
The formal conclusions are that individual Basque provincial subpopulations have low heterozygosity (genetic diversity) for European standards and that there is no relevant genetic connection between Basques and either Caucasus or North African peoples that could justify the corresponding linguistic hypothesis.
This is not new but at the very least it does say that genetics does not support at all the Vasco-Caucasian linguistic hypothesis, at least if this one is understood as Neolithic genetic and linguistic flow from the Caucasus (or anywhere nearby).
Of some interest is fig. 2:
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| Multidimensional Scaling plot of genetic distance between 27 populations (click to expand) |
Which I decided to annotate a bit:
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| click to expand |
Comments on the notes:
PC1 is described mostly by the red horizontal axis between Navarre and Scotland and seems to define internal European variation (what is logical because most populations are Europeans). The axis has a Basque vs Scottish distinction and I think it points to pre-Neolithic differences.
PC2 is described by the two blue vertical axes and it seems to indicate an opposition of the like of European vs Transmediterranean (West Asian or North African, which are dumped together by a negative definition). It is notable however that Turks are outside this group and cluster instead with those Europeans (Greeks, Tuscans) who show a greater tendency (admixture) towards the Transmediterranean zone. In the opposite pole of barely diluted Europeanness stand Catalans, most Basques (except those from Araba/Alava), Scots, Polish and, curiously enough Murcians.
The position of Murcians is interesting and I think that easy to explain from the viewpoint that Murcia shows no Cardium Pottery settlement, as far as I know. Not even geometric Epipaleolithic (second Epipaleolithic wave, from "France", related to Tardenoisian/Azilian) and this is why I annotated Azilian zone over there. I was going to write Pyrenean zone when I saw Murcia right there and thought again.
Murcians also seem to stand out as relatively "Northern-looking" in the context of Southern Iberia, at least according to what Heraus and I discussed some time ago at his blog, this may be for relative lack of Transmediterranean admixture (compare in the chart above with their Valencian and Andalusian neighbors), which is in agreement with what I think I know of Murcian deep origins.
Cantabrians in comparison stand as Basque-like but also with marked Transmediterranean admixture (low in the vertical axis). This may have to do with the high presence among them of Transmediterranean Y-DNA lineages like E1b or J. At the moment (recent findings) it seems that there is a much older Neolithic arrival to Cantabria (and Enkarterriak) than to most of the Basque Country, what may be an explanation.
Why are Catalans so strong in the axis of Europeanness? Were not they affected by Cardium Pottery colonization. In fact Catalonia was probably more colonized than Murcia: there was one single known colony (as far as I know) at Cova de Montserrat. All the rest are assimilated natives. Later Catalonia has a quite autonomous prehistory of their own until mainland European influences arrive with Urnfield culture (Celts?) and later Goths and Franks. Still there may be an element of fluke in the sample, whose quality I could not ponder because it is referred to an older pay-per-view study.
Scots are also quite a curiosity. A lot of ink has been wasted trying to relate Scots and Irish with Basques and what not. This is because of commonality of European Paleolithic persistence in the blood of all these peoples but otherwise there is no particular relation. Even recently Steven Oppenheimer was in a gig through the Basque Country sowing confusion on this matter and claiming happily that the Irish are some sort of Basques.
This and other studies clearly indicate otherwise: when the samples allow, Basques and Scots (or Welsh or Irish too) can even describe the main axis of difference at pan-European levels. Both populations show strong index of Europeanness (vertical axis) but are otheriwse different (horizontal axis).
Not wanting to go into any depth with the label, I described them as the Nordic Pole (toying of course with the concept of North Pole). The late Paleolithic or Epipaleolithic origins of this pole are to be surely found, at least partly in the Hamburgian-Ahrensburgian-Maglemosean cultural sequence. And it is indeed true that the first Scots were of Ahrsensburgian culture. However there should be another Neolithic component from Brittany and West France, originally related surely to the Tardenoisian-Sauveterrean side of Epi-Magdalenian, proper of Northern France and the Rhine-Danube province. To much of a complexity to ponder here, where the data does not allow for more.
A brief mention of the Tuscans is almost obligatory (or I will suffer the ires of some readers no doubt). They are high in Transmediterranean influence (as expected) but they are also high in Nordicness, more than any other population except Scots themselves. It is difficult to judge here but I suspect this has to do with the high frequency of similar looking people between North Italy and Britain (not just any Nordic area, specifically Great Britain but also those more classically Nordic in this island). This connection is tenuous, elusive and hard to explain but since I have dabbled with human anthropometry I have once and again found this connection where some (not all) North Italians look, not like Austrians, Sud-Slavs or even French, but rather like Brits. I say this with all kind of doubts but I feel I must open my heart in this matter anyhow.
See also the preliminary discussion at the previous post's comment section, an old post on Achilli 2008, where the mtDNA PCA had some similarities with this one, and Bauchet 2007, where again there are some similitudes (but also some differences ) with how the data behaves in this study.
Update: it may be interesting to compare with Nelis et al. 2009 (open access) which also address European autosomal genetics from a particular ethno-geographic perspective, that of Estonians. There are differences and elements of similitude, notably that the overall European structure that we are more or less used to see in more generalist papers is in these two cases perceived from certain perspective and therefore somewhat distorted (sample size rules).
This is not a bad thing at all, it is a feature and not any bug: these kind of locally focused studies on the wider continental region, add unique complementary perspectives but also help us to understand better how relatively minor changes on the emphasis of the samples can alter very much the results. And that is why one study on Europeans will emphasize N/S differences while other emphasizes E/W ones instead for example. And that's why certain study (for example all those with focus on the Jewish genetic place in the World) can put all Europe quite linearly in dependence of, say, West Asia (where there is diversity barely indicated here) and then another one put all Europe as a function of the Pyrenees and little more.
The funny thing is that both are right and that a more holistic perspective and great care on the weight given to each population for reason of the samples used are needed to see the whole picture properly.
Update (Aug 12): Dienekes just mentions another paper focused on a single population (Armenians in this case) within their wider West Eurasian context. It is particularly comparable with this one because the methods (a handful of STR sites) are very similar.
However, the results are very different: where Basques are extreme, Armenians (black dots) are in the middle:
This attends to geography, genetic isolation and history/prehistory. Similarly in the previous counter-example of Estonians, these are somewhat extreme but only because their Finnish relatives are even more extreme than they are.
Comments closed since Sep-20-2011.
Update: it may be interesting to compare with Nelis et al. 2009 (open access) which also address European autosomal genetics from a particular ethno-geographic perspective, that of Estonians. There are differences and elements of similitude, notably that the overall European structure that we are more or less used to see in more generalist papers is in these two cases perceived from certain perspective and therefore somewhat distorted (sample size rules).
This is not a bad thing at all, it is a feature and not any bug: these kind of locally focused studies on the wider continental region, add unique complementary perspectives but also help us to understand better how relatively minor changes on the emphasis of the samples can alter very much the results. And that is why one study on Europeans will emphasize N/S differences while other emphasizes E/W ones instead for example. And that's why certain study (for example all those with focus on the Jewish genetic place in the World) can put all Europe quite linearly in dependence of, say, West Asia (where there is diversity barely indicated here) and then another one put all Europe as a function of the Pyrenees and little more.
The funny thing is that both are right and that a more holistic perspective and great care on the weight given to each population for reason of the samples used are needed to see the whole picture properly.
Update (Aug 12): Dienekes just mentions another paper focused on a single population (Armenians in this case) within their wider West Eurasian context. It is particularly comparable with this one because the methods (a handful of STR sites) are very similar.
However, the results are very different: where Basques are extreme, Armenians (black dots) are in the middle:
This attends to geography, genetic isolation and history/prehistory. Similarly in the previous counter-example of Estonians, these are somewhat extreme but only because their Finnish relatives are even more extreme than they are.
Comments closed since Sep-20-2011.
So, Neolithic people look exactly like the average European (i.e, there are no differences between Europeans and Neolithic farmers?)?
ReplyDeleteTuscans are deviated towards the nordic pole? Scots are the least related to Basques? What if we add a Yoruban or Chinese population in the graphics? Would they appear to be as related to Basques are to Scots? Catalans aren't related at all to Valencians, nor Murcians nor Tuscans? It's difficult to believe, because they're basically a mixture of Iberians (whatever this means) and central Europeans.
Overall, I think this graphic has very low credibility, maybe due to biased, old, bas quality, etc, samples. I'm pretty sure a second sample of Scots has many chances to appear much closer to Basques.
This sample has limitations, I understand, not because of numbers but because of number of sites studied (9 STR sites and nothing more). In comparison there are papers around dealing with I do not know how many Kbytes of DNA info, which would seem to be more informative.
ReplyDeleteAnother bias may be that Basques (and secondarily Iberians) are oversampled - not too sure because most non-Basque sample references are from PPV papers and no details are provided.
But the results are not crazy: they are within expectations, assuming this kind of Basque/Iberian focus. Similar studies have been done with Estonians and other populations.
If you look at the Estonian paper however there are some differences:
1. Estonians cluster tightly, Basques are spread around in the geometry. This is probably because Estonians are a homogeneous people while Basques hide a greater diversity at least across sub-regions.
2. Estonians are rather towards the middle and do not define any pole (Finnish, Latvians and South Italians do instead). Estonians are defined by Finnish and Latvians and in greatest contrast to South Italians. Basques instead define one pole and are not defined by any other peoples (except negatively) - they'd be more like the Finns of the Estonian paper, what makes total sense because both are "extreme" populations.
3. Both positive poles in the Estonian study are concentrated in Kuusamo Finns: the NE European or Baltic pole (vs. Mediterranean Europeans) of PC1 and the Finnish (vs. Baltic and other Europeans) of PC2. Thanks to the inclusion of non-European peoples, maybe, this simple polarity is broken in this paper: here Basques play the role of Finns (in relation to PC2) and Scots of Latvians, while Catalans play the role of Finns (in relation to PC1) and the Transmediterranean pool that of South Italians. The PC1/2 axis would be exchanged.
The results make sense, just that the (relative) oversampling of certain regions emphasizes certain perspective, the same that the relative oversampling of Estonians and neighbors emphasizes certain somewhat different perspective in the Estonian/European study caste.
The really striking element of the PCA plot to me is not where particular points lie, but the immense diversity of these data points in Spain and Southern France relative to other larger geographic expanses of Europe.
ReplyDeleteA long day's drive from Southern France and round and about Spain covers far more territory on the PCA map than a grand European tour from Portugal to Belgium to Germany to Poland to the Russia to Bosnia to Hungary to Austria to Switzerland, all of which cluster together tightly on these measures.
It is the scatter and not the orientation of these Spanish-Basque data points that make the strongest case of the local populations having more ancient ancestry than most of the rest of Europe.
Similar reasoning supports the positions of Scotland, which is surely at least somewhat older in population origins than Britain, of Turkey and Greece, near the approximate points of origin of most modern humans into Europe, of Georgia which has not been heavily touched by migration since the Bronze Age and probably much earlier, and North Africa which has exhibited from population continuity with pre-Neolithic populations than almost anywhere else.
Viewed in polar coordinates, the distance out from the European core looks like a good measure of population antiquity, and the let-right dimension looks like a remnant Upper Paleolithic North-South cline that has been obliterated in much of European by the replacement of the autochronous population by Neolithic era or later replacements, and the top-bottom dimension seems to mostly capture a secondary North-South cline of more recent origins that particularly marks the divide between North Africa and Southern Europe - it might be an iron age relic parallel to European Y-DNA hg E distributions.
Excepting Portugal, all those populations you mention belong to the well known Central-North European cluster, which, in Bauchet and other papers is quite homogeneous and contrasts with both the Iberian and Basque clusters.
ReplyDeleteHowever Scotland should also belong to that cluster and in this chart, it is completely apart.
I'd say that because of the use of only 9 markers, the result is subject to some randomness. But also that this paper is one of the few that has no Finnish sample, what may sooth quite a bit the tendency towards exaggeration by the North.
You do not need to resort to replacement in Central-North Europe to explain, that area has quite limited Paleolithic origins anyhow: in the LGM, most Europeans lived exactly in the area that raises your eyebrows so much: SW Europe (also Hungary/Moravia).
I am very sceptical about any conclusions drawn from the current samples of Iberian or French genetic material. First of all, it would be necessary to conduct a comprehensive and systematic data collection, like the one that has recently been carried out in the British Isles (Winney et al 2011), which also includes the (highly interesting and relevant) analysis of surnames. It makes little sense to try to draw conclusions from sparse and unevenly distributed samples.
ReplyDeleteAnother interesting thing to do would be to carry out more research on the ancient DNA of Franco-Iberians.
In his post, Maju talks about Paleolithic, Naolithic and other prehistoric events, but I think in some cases, for example Murcia or Valencia, it is necessary to talk about Middle Ages repopulation after the fall of the Muslims. This a historical event which is clearly recordeed in history books, with comprehensive lists of newcomers (e.g. in the 'Carta de Repoblament'). The genetic input of these populations in areas like Valencia or Murcia is supposed to be enormous. The new settlers came mostly from Catalonia, Aragon and SE France, but also from Navarre and Gascony. Surnames like 'Gascó' are common in Valencia, as well as 'Avinyó', 'Perpinyà' or 'Rosselló'. Then we have other inputs of population, like the Irish or German people who settled in some areas after the War of Succession or the great amount of people from Malta who arrived in the area in the 18 c., and whose surnames are still quite common: Sicluna, Minsut, Samit, even Barberà (though this one can also be of Catalan origin). What sense does it make to talk about Neolithic or Paleolithic without a clear and systematic study of the data with the inclusion of all possible intervening historical events?
Murcia was a Christian vassal under Cordoba (and later under Denia and others), it need not be "repopulated" or even converted back or almost. Also Reconquista "repopulation" is horribly overrated in general.
ReplyDeleteI expect to deal with Winney 2011 soon but I do not think it's such an important paper. It does not even provide mtDNA or autosomal comparisons and the best I can gather from it is a Y-DNA map to be done (which is no novelty).
I am somewhat skeptic of surnames studies and, looking at Winney 2011 I found very difficult to find a logic for their method of estimating locality of surnames, really. It's nothing described with any clarity at all.
On the other hand, Dienekes just mentioned a similar study on Armenians (also with a limited set of STR sites) and again the results are very different, with Armenians falling towards the center of the PC graph (along with East Balcanic and Highland West Asian peoples). PC1 axis: South Asia vs. NW Africa, PC2 axis: lowland West Asia and Egypt vs Europe (incl. Georgia, and polarized towards Russia).
Sadly none of the "outlier" populations in this study (save the "Transmediterranean" group, which are totally reorganized in relation to Armenians) are included, so we can't know how Basques, Catalans or Scots would have performed in this graph, though I imagine that towards the European pole (negative PC2) and rather extreme in it.
Also Iberia is rather well sampled, if not so well researched (not exactly the same thing). France is very poorly sampled and even worse researched and is the main handicap here.
ReplyDeleteI think you misunderstand the aim of Winney et al's article. Basically, what they do is present the survey, especially how the data were collected, both DNA and surnames. A pilot study of a proportion of the data is also provided. Obviously, the important results will appear in due time, when the data are thoroughly analysed. When you read the article you will realize that there's no other genetic survey anywhere in the world with such comprehensiveness and systematicity. I doubt very much that serious population genetics research can be done if those standards are not met.
ReplyDeleteWhen you read the article you will also realize the potential of surname analyses as an additional tool in this type of research.
I'm not trying to overstate the role of 'Reconquista' migration, and in fact, as you know, I'm generally against invasion-massive migration types of explanation, but what we have here, e.g. the Valencian case (I don't know so much about Murcia), is probably the clearest and most detailed example of recorded migration following the conquest of a territory in the Middle Ages (13c.). It is a relevant event that must necessarily be taken into consideration in the genetic history of these territories, not as a marginal note but as an essential element.
Jesús: I admit that I have read the paper a bit fast (I usually do the first time, so it's normal) but I value the paper for what it offers in terms of data: and Y-DNA data is all I found (unless you're interested in HLA haplotypes, which I find more annoying than useful actually).
ReplyDeleteThere's another problem: most Catalans, Basques, Valencians, etc, have ancestors from other parts of Spain; their ancestors arrived in recent times (during 50's-60's). As for Catalonia, the vast majority of its population have at least one Andalusian, Murcian, Extremaduran, etc, ancestor. If the authors took the samples from Barcelona or a big city, it's likely they were sampling a mix of people from different parts of Spain, perhaps not being representative of "native" Catalans.
ReplyDeleteWhen you sample "Catalans" you normally do not sample "Catalans of Andalusian ancestry" but with four Catalan grandparents or something like that. The Basque samples of Alonso 2008 were so extreme in this criterion that he asked for all four grandparents from the same district or even town (can't recall), what is obviously too much (and he admitted to it in his paper: +3 for sincerity).
ReplyDeleteThis is done in order to counter as much as possible recent admixture, which normally is useless for our goals.
The recent UK survey, as described by Winney et al, includes the four-granparents criterium, plus a measure of geographic distance that is also recorded. For obvious reasons, they try to avoid populations from big towns or cities. One of the good things about this UK survey is that you get a lot of samples (more than 4,000) using exactly the same criteria in all the different areas, which is a solid basis for further research.
ReplyDeleteThe measure of geographic distance, which is what matters, is not clear: I was looking at it once and again yesterday I could not understand which was their criterion (what's MLQ?) to describe a surname as local or not.
ReplyDeleteAlso, how local is for example Smith? We know that this kind of surnames, like García or López in Spain, have arisen many different times in many different places. Instead rare surnames are often true indication of family. There was an study on this some time ago (2010?). I'm sure that your surname, Sanchís, has many origins, even if it's not the most common one, while mine, Aldamiz, probably has one or two origins and that's it.
I think this is something that the Winney paper fails to address properly - and yet some people take at face value their claims. I'll re-read it anyhow, but that is my impression.
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A large sample is nice but it's not so strictly necessary. Small samples are bad but midling samples in the hundred(s) are alright. More important is to cover well the landscape.
Also in their actual research they only used (random) subsets of those samples, I understand. While the overall sample is of 3865 people, the actually researched one is of 1057 only (enough but not as big as you thought).
Very interesting analysis and a great summary by Maju as far as I am concerned. Some points I'd like to adress :
ReplyDelete- Very nice to see anthropometric intuitions can somehow be confirmed by genetics, in the peculiar case of Murcia. I'm not able to know if Murcians' ancestry mostly is of ancient autochtonous stock or derive vastly from medieval newcomers - I know substitution of population is possible : there are many cases in France of whole areas being repopulated in the Middle-Ages and such movements are well recorded by medieval charts - but still that's fascinating. I'll try to investigate Murcia once more.
- I do agree with you that Tuscans can somehow look "British", that's something I've noticed many times in my diverse Tuscan samples without daring state it as it is somehow a bit strange nd far-fetched.
- I'm coming back from a 5-day trip in Northern Spain (Cantabria, Asturias, Castile, Navarre, ...) and I must say I'm a bit clueless about why Navarre succeeded in keeping being that original when it is a widely open area (unless they sampled Navarrese people from very remote valleys) whereas areas protected by whole mountains such as Cantabria or Asturias were more easily subject to "foreign" influence, more particularly Asturias as far as I remember, Cantabria not being that much influenced by Neolithic genetic imput.
Let me get straight about repopulations and what they mean because I much doubt that if repopulations were much less important than stated in Iberia, they'd be so important in France, where there was no 'reconquista' of any sort.
ReplyDeleteWhen a monarch or feudal lord or monastery stated that they had "founded" a town or city, in 99.99% of cases the city existed before but this particular lord signed a charter and maybe sponsored some improvements. When they say that they repopulated this or that spot, they surely mean that the sent some people from a nearby district or village but not at all ALL the people nor much less from a remote area. They tended to simplify and exaggerate a lot, similarly military historians tend to think that the Roman armies and those of their foes were just a fraction of what is claimed in "history" (propaganda) books.
Also where nothing happened, nothing was registered, so we only see the exceptional, much as happens in the news (journalists in India, for instance, do not report on slums and daily poverty, giving a bad impression of what is really happening and making India look much more prosperous than it actually is).
I think this applies to Iberia, to France and even to a large extent of East Germany, where the colonizing effort is much better documented (and yet all towns were "founded" on previously existing Slavic ones). Drang nach Östen? Sure but only half of the half of the half of what is apparent in a shallow reading.
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Also I said that some North Italians (not Tuscans) tend to appear somewhat like British. I just assumed that Tuscans are genetically related with North Italians and act here as proxy but I did not mean specifically Tuscans but more like people from the Veneto or Lobardy (but there is no specific border, just a focus).
As for the Navarrese sample its is (fig. 1) from two nearby villages SW of Pamplona. It can sin of too local and I would not pay too much attention to the exaggeration it shows. Probably a wider sample in Navarre should have put it closer to Gipuzkoa or Araba, depending what localities were sampled.
ReplyDeleteThe other three provinces are properly sampled however, always in rural areas (what may emphasize the heterozygosity = inbreeding, said to be in the low tier of Europe) and ignoring the Ebro Valley, which may be more mixed since old.
"When a monarch or feudal lord or monastery stated that they had "founded" a town or city, in 99.99% of cases the city existed before but this particular lord signed a charter and maybe sponsored some improvements. When they say that they repopulated this or that spot, they surely mean that the sent some people from a nearby district or village but not at all ALL the people nor much less from a remote area. They tended to simplify and exaggerate a lot, similarly military historians tend to think that the Roman armies and those of their foes were just a fraction of what is claimed in "history" (propaganda) books."
ReplyDeleteThis could be the case in your neck of the woods.
Of course, where I live, it is possible to say with near certainty that well over 99% of the ancestors of the current population (by genetic admixture proportion) were no where even remotely close to this area as of 1820 C.E. (i.e. less than two centuries ago), and subsequent migrations have swamped the earliest significant populations. The official declarations, of course, post-dated the presence of some kind of population, but here in the New World, the lag was often a matter of years or decades rather than centuries or millenia.
There were prior inhabitants of this place, of course, and we have records of what they said to the newcomers (e.g. don't live on the riverbanks, because they flood every once in a while). But, we also know a lot about the combination of death, voluntarily migration and involuntarily migration that put the people who used to live where I do where they are now.
This isn't to say that this is what actually happened in the Middle Ages in Northern Iberia, but it does influence one's prejudices about what seems to be within the realm of plausibility. The notion that an entirely new town could be created by a monarch in response to a very recent movement of some people to start a settlement out of whole cloth in a time of rebounding population after a population collapse that may jusfifably left people a bit spooked about the place they used to live that was full of memories of dead loved ones doesn't seem terribly implausible to me.
Where you live is not Europe, the demographic change is not related to neither Neolithic nor Middle Ages but most natives were essentially hunter-gatherers with very low population densities and all settlers were late industrial migrants.
ReplyDeleteAlso where you live is not Mexico nor Peru nor Guatemala nor Ecuador nor Bolivia... where a good deal of modern ancestry, often well above 50% is native. Why? Because they had dense agricultural societies that could withstand much better any immigration and also because most of the immigrants arrived before the industrial era (however in the early modern, proto-industrial, era).
I can understand that from such "Steamship & Railroad vs. loincloth & club" type of reality you can imagine massive demographic replacements happening almost overnight. But that is not the reality of Europe or nearly anywhere in the Old World (Siberia is the main exception).
Look at Palestine to see how, even with a planned systematic genocide and colonization supported by the most powerful Empire ever, is extremely hard to perform in front of agricultural natives, even in a post-nuclear reality. Can it happen? Sure. Look at the mass resettlements made after WWII or the Armenian genocide. But even in our late industrial and ethno-fanatic reality it is a most difficult matter.
In the past ethnicity or even religion did not matter so much, people just converted or learned the new language almost overnight, and also the means to perform genocides were not really at hand, nor was the intent almost ever.
I know the study of surnames has its limitations, but I've seen it applied in several cases, for example by Bryan Sykes, and it seems to be an interesting additional tool for population genetics. Of course it's difficult to know the origin of some surnames. My first surname (Sanchis) might be a local form deriving from an Aragonese or castilian name, and my second surname (Calabuig) has a very Catalan look (and pronunciation).
ReplyDeleteNow, going back to the repopulation issue, I'd say it's necessary to evaluate the population history of every area in detail before reaching conclusions. Let's see the Valencian example again. In the book called "El Llibre del Repartiment de València" (http://www.jaumeprimer.uji.es/cgi-bin/repartiment.php), written at the time of James I of Aragon, there are a total of 3,200 registers. They comprise only the period between 1237 and 1257, after the conquest of the kingdom of Valencia. In each register we have the name of one or a group of Christians who were given the right to occupy a given piece of land, previously owned by a Muslim. The names of those Muslims are also recorded. It's difficult to calculate the exact number of newcomers, including their families, etc., but in any case they became the new governing rule. The Muslim population lost most of their possessions and became second-class citizens, in a process that culminated in the expulsion of the Muslims ('moriscos') in 1609. It is estimated that approximately one third of the Valencian population was deported then.
One has the impression that these historical events are quite relevant in the history of Valencia, and should be taken into account before drawing conclusions about prehistoric populations.
Calabuig looks like a very much true family surname and at least does corresponds with a locality in Girona province (Catalonia indeed). And it's surely the same place that inspired the title and imaginary location of 'Calabuch' a Berlanga film from the 1950s.
ReplyDelete...
"I'd say it's necessary to evaluate the population history of every area in detail before reaching conclusions".
I am very much in agreement. And then contrast with the real genetics to see if what you gather from registry books makes any sense. For example Valencian genetics are NOT consistent with a colonization (total or even partial) from Catalonia and/or Aragon. They are consistent instead with a strong Cardium-Pottery or otherwise Transmediterranean colonization (on native substrate).
"In each register we have the name of one or a group of Christians who were given the right to occupy a given piece of land, previously owned by a Muslim".
Sure. Are those settlers peasants or nobles. What apportion of the original population do those Muslisms (and replacing Christians) represent. Why the realms of the Crown of Aragon (and also so many local authorities in Castile) so strongly opposed in practical terms the decrees of expulsion of Muslims sine 1492 because these made up almost all the workforce?
"One has the impression that these historical events are quite relevant in the history of Valencia, and should be taken into account before drawing conclusions about prehistoric populations".
I have the impression that you (and others, incl. Heraus in the French case) are being misled by these historical registers and decrees, which are no statistics and with all likelihood represent only the proverbial point of the iceberg.
Overall most "Muslims" were never expelled nor replaced (even, in spite of being mostly urban, most Jews also remained), though they were pressed hard to convert. Similarly, "when the Muslims came" (i.e. the Muslim armies with very few associated colonists), most people stayed put, many as Christians (Mozárabes) but many also converted to Islam (as it offered many advantages, Moriscos). There were some punctual migrations (refugees, settlers) associated to these wars but overall did not make such a huge impact.
Most people just adapted to whatever they were thrown upon. That's how people survive discreetly but efficiently.
I'll see if I can find some online references because I know all this for a historical fact (at least for Iberia and Germany/Austria/Poland) because I have read on it. But I lack the references right now.
"The late Paleolithic or Epipaleolithic origins of this pole are to be surely found, at least partly in the Hamburgian-Ahrensburgian-Maglemosean cultural sequence"
ReplyDeleteI think this idea has been overlooked, for too long.
Until recently most did not understand that the Haburgian-Ahrensburgian-Maglemosean was a distinct techno-culture of the Nordic lowlands, incl. surely Doggerland.
ReplyDeleteBut IMO it gives a good explanation for some genetic (and even phenotype) features that are exclusive or almost of that area, notably R1b1a2a1a1a-U106 or extreme blondism (an adaption to high and cloudy latitudes). Both these features tend to concentrate towards Friesland today.
'Calabuig' is a very common surname in valencia, and I don't think a small hamlet in Girona can be its sole origin. It does not count as one of the toponyms that have provided other common Valencian surnames, like Terol, Ripoll, Tortosa, Soria, Daroca, Monzón, Banyuls, Girona or Casp, just to mention a few.
ReplyDeleteLet's try to imagine those events of the 13th c. A medieval kingdom has organized a crusade against the moors, in which a great number of people from Aragon, Castile, Catalonia, Navarre, France and even Hungary have decided to participate. As a result of the war of conquest you have at your disposal a vast territory of the most fertile land imaginable, and the price you have to pay for this land is quite affordable: exactly zero. Besides, you have a steady supply of cheap workforce at your service, and at your back there's a perfectly organized state (the Corona d'Aragó) that guarantees your safety. This is what I call a real 'El Dorado', and it's not difficult to imagine that in the 13th and 14th c. there must have been a continous flow of people from other areas of the Corona d'Aragó ready to take a chance.
Of course a condiderable percentage of the Muslim or 'Mozárabe' population remained, but living in poor onditions. As for the 'Mozárabes', their position was already extremely weak after the Almoravid and Almohade persecutions of the previous centuries.
And then we have the expulsion of the moors (1609), which did happen for sure and which did involve hundreds of thousands of people who were sent to Algeria or Morocco, not to mention the thousands that were slaughtered in a series of upheavals that took place at the time.
And thank you for the link about the Maglemoseans. In a recent post in my blog (http://languagecontinuity.blogspot.com/2011/08/making-sense-of-archaeology.html) I talked about the Maglemose culture (and Doggerland), and I also suggested that much more attention should be paid to it.
ReplyDeleteOne issue with place surnames is that they can be given to anyone born or somehow related to that place. It is often the case of orphans. My grandma had all her life the apprehension (sometimes bordering anguish, because her father died when she was young), that her surname (Castrillo) was of orphan origin in fact. Hard to say because not much is known from her father's lineage.
ReplyDeleteI won't try to judge the genealogy of Valencian surnames but I'd say that, in general, when there is a correspondence with a locality, specially with a plausible locality (after all there are allegations of Catalan colonization of the Valencian country), the origin may be there. However it may be not that an ancestor lived at Calabuig but maybe was a servant to the Lord of Calabuig and got his surname from that (happened a lot).
"And then we have the expulsion of the moors (1609), which did happen for sure and which did involve hundreds of thousands of people who were sent to Algeria or Morocco"...
Precisely: local authorities resisted because it harmed their economy.
Anyhow, if there was such ethnic cleansing in Valencia, why is it so anomalous in relation the genetic of nearby realms? Notably (old nomenclature):
· Quite lower R1bf than both Catalonia and Aragon (and Majorca).
· Quite higher E3b1 than both Catalonia and Aragon
· Quite lower J2 than both Catalonia and Aragon
If we compare with Catalonia alone, allegedly the main population source:
· Quite higher E3b2
· Quite higher I
· Quite lower G
· Quite lower R1b (in general)
I think this is best explained if we appeal to (mostly) founder effects in the Neolithic, when Valencia, specially the southern half, was heavily colonized by Cardium Pottery People from further East in the Mediterranean.
But maybe I am wrong. Whatever the case, if there would have been such a massive ethnic cleansing as you claim, the genetic composition should be more like Catalonia (or Catalonia+Aragon) than it is.
It's not possible to explain the low apportions of R1b3f and G specially, which make up more than 25% of Catalan Y-DNA pool but barely 5% of the Valencian one. This says that Catalan direct contribution (males) was at most 20% of all the Valencian genetic pool. In comparison a Catalan colonization of Majorca (but not Minorca) is somewhat plausible instead (but may have happened in the Neolithic at least partly so).
I haven't mentioned the concept of 'ethnic cleansing', and I haven't even remotely suggested it. Again, the only thing I'm saying is that medieval input in Valencia is important enough as to be taken into consideration. On the other hand, I'm generally sceptical about any analysis of DNA material. I've read a lot of articles about population genetics and I have the impression that in this young science what is true today is false tomorrow: there is no clear indication that any given analysis might be particularly valid, especially when far-reaching conclusions are drawn from the material. That's why, for example, I have very much stressed the need for systematic and comprehensive data collecting. Otherwise, I can only be quite sceptical.
ReplyDeleteReturning to the Valencian theme, I find it funny when you write the following: "the Neolithic, when Valencia, specially the southern half, was heavily colonized by Cardium Pottery People". You doubt a well documented migration event in medieval Iberia, and then you take for granted that sometime in prehistory there was heavy colonization... Well, I think a better approach would be to try to avoid spectacular conclusions about prehistory without having carried out some more detailed research about more recent events.
You have more than just remotely suggested ethnic cleansing when you consider the expulsion of the Moriscos a fait accompli. Even if it failed it'd be a case of ethnic cleansing/genocide, at least as attempt, mind you.
ReplyDeleteAs for genetic facts, they are pretty real. Another thing is interpretation but, while retouches may and do happen in the structure of the phylogeny, the data is fundamentally valid and solid and has not changed that much in some aspects from the time they were only working with blood groups (i.e. the 1950s or so).
I wonder, if you are not interested in genetics and do not believe in the methods (and you also do not believe in archaeology nor mainstream linguistics for what I can gather), what do you believe in: whatever a voice in your head dictates capriciously?
I tell you what I do not believe in: pseudoscience.
"... systematic and comprehensive data collecting".
I understand that in the case of Iberia that is a fait accopli at least to some extent. Not so much in France where ideological chauvinist forces are hindering research, trying to hide the diversity of the hexagon and its deep structure, but in the Iberian Peninsula there have been no such legal barriers.
"You doubt a well documented migration event in medieval Iberia, and then you take for granted that sometime in prehistory there was heavy colonization..."
I do not take anything for granted but for all I know about Cardium Pottery culture, most sites in most regions imply not colonization. How do we know? Because the peoples adopting the CP cultural elements such as farming, sheep or pottery, retained local toolkits rooted in the Epipaleolithic (Azilian/Microlaminar, Tardenoisian/Geometric or, in Italy, Epigravettian).
However there are some cases where that did not happen and full-fledged colonization seems to have taken place. In most regions that is just one or two localized sites (Cova de Montserrat in Catalonia for example) but in the Southern Valencian Country that is most of the CP culture's sites.
Anyhow, I am open to factual detailed counter-arguments of Archaeological nature but a knee-jerk doubt not. Bring evidence.
More recent "events", as you describe them, do not explain anything in the genetic realm, as I have shown you already. That's probably because they are not so real (at least much less dramatic than you think).
We are here discussing genetics in any case, and we are all trying to do it on factual grounds. Focus or let it be.
Well yes, in my previous comment I was thinking about the 'Reconquista', which is the main point in the discussion. Then there's the second element I introduced, the expulsion of the moors, which is of course an example of ethnic cleansing. It's so obvious that tehre's no need for even stating it. And it's not a myth, it's simple historical fact. Two years ago there was the commemoration of the 4th centenary of the event, and many books and articles were published about it. The expulsion has been analysed from every possible angle, including hundreds of thousands of historical documents of all kinds, and the whole thing was the theme of a multitude of exhibitions and documentaries that brought the subject to the public. You're from the Basque country and maybe you didn't have access to all these events, but that's your problem. Before 1609 the Muslims were a reality in many areas of Spai, especially in the kingdom of Valencia. They appeared in all types of legal documents and regulations, and they were a part of society, a subdued one but at least existent. After 1609, this all disappeared. Apart from some remote areas where some Muslims might have been able to manage to stay, the truth is that they simply vanished. Some stories are told about some small children being left behind by the adults who were forced to leave, and it's obvious that there must be some genetic print connected with those populations, but the truth, again, is that they were deported somewhere else. There are places, e.g. in the Marina counties (province of Valencia) where you can visit literally hundreds of settlements that were abandoned at taht time, and continue to be abandoned now. You can visit them whenever you want and there are even guided tours to go and see them. The great injustice of the expulsion of the moors is historical fact, and it have all kinds of consequences for Valencia, including a deep economic crisis. But let's remember that the decision to deport the Muslims was not taken in Valencia, but in Madrid.
ReplyDeleteIt is grotesque to talk about the genetics of the Valencians without taking into consideration the most relevant events that have taken place in the last milleniume which have an impact on the population. The last one, and probably the strongest one, has to do with recent migration from Andalusia, Extremadura, and other Spanish areas, but that's an event that can be avoided with the right data collection methodology, as has already been mentioned in this discussion.
I am sceptical about anything that is said about prehistory (how could I not be?), but especially about oversimpified explanations, like your summary of Franco-Spanish genetic history. Why don't you try to be more modest, Maju? Why don't you just accept that your wonderful conclusions might be simply wrong in some aspects?
You say you are open to archaeological counter arguments, but what about the historical arguments that you have voluntarily chosen to overlook? That's the weak point in your reasoning. But anyway, I would never take your ideas at any scientific value, for obvious reasons.
This issue (reconquista y repoblación) interested me a lot some time ago and I have a lot of litterature about it (I can not check it now, so I´m writing this from memory).
ReplyDeleteWhat is known is:
--there were 4 territories of population origin but also destination: León (including Asturias and Galicia), Castille (including Cantabria and Basque country), Navarre, Aragón and Catalonia. Aragón and Catalonia merged definitivelly since 1164. León and Castille merged definitivelly since 1230. Navarrese expansion was aborted by the more succesfull expansions of Castilla-León and Aragón (geography matters). Also there are quite a few Francos (all peoples north of the Pirenées) attested in medieval sources, manly in cities along the Camino de Santiago. And during both middle ages and modern times there has been a huge population in Cataluña and Valencia of french origin (I do not know where from France).
--In Castilla Léon (maybe also in Aragón-Cataluña) the movement of population was in two directions: both north to south and south to north (for instance there is attested movement of mozárabes from the south to the north and there was quite a few people from the south that migrated to north cities along trade routes in modern times, including basque towns; for this reason full genealogies would be better than 4 ancestors; and regarding genealogy if you are not of noble origin, it is almost impossible to find certain links beyond XVI century).
--In Castilla León there are five main areas each one with a different administrative way of peopleing: the “Merindades” area (León and parts of Zamora, Palencia, Burgos provinces), the Comunidades de Villa y Tierra area (Salamanca, Avila, Segovia, Soria, Cuenca, Guadalajara, Madrid and parta of Toledo), the Military Orders area (in Castille la Mancha and Extremadura and part of Andalucia provinces) and Andalucia Bética, which was a mixture of Comunidades de Villa y Tierra (Ubeda y Baeza, Ecija, Carmona, Sevilla...) and nobility latifundios. A good summary with a map in this blog: Castilla http://arquehistoria.com/historiasla-repoblaci-n-cristiana-en-la-reconquista-el-repartimiento-520. Not so long ago there was a hot historiographical debate regarding the Duero valley area (http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desierto_del_Duero). The fifth area is the kingdom of Granada. Each area has a different pattern of peopleing, not irrelevant for genetic studies.
(to be continued in next comment)
Regarding Islamic invasion and later expulsions a short dictionary: mozárabe (pre islamic conquest hispano-gothic population that remained as christians in islamic territories; some migrated to north and mixed with castillians); mudéjars (islamic people, which could had originated either as hispano-gothic people that converted to islam, either arabs, berebers or sirians that invade Iberia), moriscos (mudéjars that converted, mainly forced, to christianism; these could be of hispano-gothic origin, of arabic bereber sirian origin or even of jewish origin: there are attested cases probably not very frequent,of jewish that converted into islam in order to avoid expulsion in 1492). Beyond any doubt and taking into account the most extreme in any sense estimations, houndreds of thousands peoples were expulsed, adding those expulsed in 1492 and 1609. Many probably of hispano-gothic ancestry admixed with arabo-sirian-bereber. About Murcia a good summary is in this article from Anselmo Carretero (with a warning, since he was not a professional historian):
ReplyDeletehttp://www.jarique.com/pdf/carretero_01.pdf. I might expand this comment as soon as I have access to my sources
The peoples that occupated these new areas during medieval and modern times came from all classes: high nobility, hidalgos, and peasants. The hard task is to make a quantitative analysis of all these movements (both north to south and south to north).
I agree with Sanchis that every case must be studied very carefully and must include all avalaible information (including surnames; btw a very good web page for the quantitative study of spanish surnames: http://www.ine.es/apellidos/formGeneralresult.do?L=0&vista=3&orig=ine&cmb3=99&cmb6=aldamiz&x=8&y=6 ; see also http://www.ine.es/apellidos/formGeneralresult.do?L=0&vista=3&orig=ine&cmb3=99&cmb6=calabuig&x=9&y=6) before sampling for genetic studies. IMO to assert that the population of any spanish province is genetically related with the population of the same province in neolithic or even antiquity without proofs is very close to crackpot science. Not to speak of paleolithic.
p.s. sorry for long comment and sorry if I do not answer. I have difficult access to internet where I am now..
The issue here is that we're speaking without having the only piece of information we'd need i.e. estimations of the number of inhabitants before and after the Reconquista. Generally speaking, I'm quite skeptical about theories developping models of substitution as I'm rather convinced that medieval migrations never can fully alter the autochtonous basis as density was alredy too high in these times, yet I know there are some documentated ones, noticeably in the Middle-Ages in France.
ReplyDeleteAmongst such famous replacements is the repeopling of parts of modern-day Moselle and Alsace with Oïl-speaking migrants (thus creating "Pays Welsche"). Another one is the "Gavacherie" phenomenon in the vicinity of Bordeaux : medieval charts are quite clear, at some point in History, lands were abandoned by local Gascon people (quite probably because of the Black Death) and local religious authorities did "advertize" those free lands in Poitou from where most migrants eventually originated. The impact of these newcomers might have been exaggerated as the only texts remaining are mostly about those who settled, not really those who had been there from time immemorial as registers have been lost or never existed in the first place. Yet it is obvious that this population constitued an Oïlic-speaking exclave into Gascon lands for centuries (the language died out in the 50s), that these people all had Oïlic names which could easily be traced back even though major placenames had remained what they were before "colonization" (there's no other word for this phenomenon). See "Petite Gavacherie" for more data.
Some historians do also speculate that the whole of Western France was colonized from the Loire valley in the early Middle-Ages after studying surnames in Saintonge and Aunis. It's true one has to find an explaination to why these areas eventually abandoned their vernacular Oc dialect in favour of Oïl. Linguistic substitution can be easily explained without repeopling though. Maybe those historians are making a confusion between proper colonization and ancient internal migrations. For instance it is a well attested fact that the ancestors of modern-day Vendeans used to migrate southwards. Alpine people are also know for seasonal migrations into Provence. In that respect, Catalan migrations into Valencia might just be an old phenomenon, not something massive, just what one can expect from two neighbouring areas sharing cultural and geographical aspects.
BTW Maju's point is uneasily debatable : had substitution been massive, Murcia and Valencia would not be that distinct. Yet they are, just like they were in Neolithic times. Which hints to the fact that repeopling was an epiphenomenon, mostly urban (like in Navarre for instance : if you read some historians, you might end believing Navarre was only populated by "francos" !).
Very useful and interesting information, Heraus. Now, there's an essential difference between medieval France and Iberia: the religious element: The Spanish 'Reconquista' has an important religious element that crystalized with the Jewish persecution and diaspora and, later, with the expulsion of the 'Moriscos'. The Spanish 'Reconquista' was seen from the beginning as some kind of crusade. For example, one of the common themes in the lives and works of Provençal troubadours was the Spanish crusade, as they called it. In fact, the involvement of French people in the Corona d'Aragó events was certainly significant.
ReplyDeleteI'm afraid nothing really compares to these events in medieval Europe, and probably there is nothing comparable to Spanish Jewish persecution and Muslim expulsion until the times of Nazi Germany.
I agree with you that prehistoric elements must have survived and could be relevant and identifiable, but there's a need for an implementation of later events, especially if they're as far-reaching as the ones described here. Current genetic material of eastern Spaniards may be 'Neolithic', or 'Palaeolithic' but, in what way?
@Heraus:
ReplyDeleteWhat I see with your examples is that the two are very very localized phenomenons (neither district is large), that there is (nor can probably be) clear data about the real impact of the colonization and that the immigrants arrived from not far away (Poitou is not really far from Bordeaux, for instance). How from these so localized and limited phenomena give you the impression of massive colonization and replacement, I fail to understand.
This kind of phenomenon is what actually tells me: that was about all the changes that happened in many centuries: almost nothing. They are what underline that we should expect approximate demographic continuity in all or most regions, always with some flexibility, of course.
"like in Navarre for instance : if you read some historians, you might end believing Navarre was only populated by "francos"!"
Exactly! Of course there were some "Frankish settlers", restricted to urban areas... but most were Gascons or Languedocines, not true French (much less Germanic Franks). The likelihood of those settlers coming from nearby Béarn was like 99% greater than for them coming from truly Paris.
Nobody denies occasional migrations at small scale between nearby areas and also regular flow of people at mostly short distances. It's people, not trees!
@Jesús:
ReplyDelete"... it's simple historical fact".
Historical facts are never simple as you should know if you have ever discussed about recent history with someone with different political ideas. History is what people say of things that happened, not what actually happened necessarily.
Can you tell me what percentage (in relation to natives) of colonists arrived to Valencia upon the conquest by the Crown of Aragon? No, you cannot. You can only mention that some aristocrats were given the lands of some defeated ones.
Can you tell me what percentage of Muslims converted after the 1492 decree of forced conversion? No, you cannot.
Can you tell me what percentage of Muslims were in Valencia in 1601? No, you cannot. And, of them, how many converted in the last minute before being expelled? No, you cannot. And if they were replaced by colonists from elsewhere and what proportion they mad of the Valencian population? No, you cannot.
That would be FACTS, simple statistical facts. But we don't have any and my impression in general is that this is because the "facts" are largely trivial.
"Before 1609 the Muslims were a reality in many areas of Spai, especially in the kingdom of Valencia".
I don't think so. Because they had obligation of conversion. They only existed as "crypto-Muslims" because their religion was illegal and persecuted by the Holy Inquisition.
According to Wikipedia, these crypto-Muslims made up a 20% of the population in Valencia and Aragon. Even if they managed to expel all 20% of native Muslims, there would still be 80% of already converted who remained. Yes or yes?
Yes.
It would have damaged the demography but not altered the genetics, because all or most Muslims or Christians were descendants of natives of the area in Roman times and before.
Do you think that there are substantial genetic differences between Catholic and Muslim Bosnians? Catholic and Muslim Albanians? Not that I know. And if they exist must be random because no immigration is attested in relation to these conversions.
"It is grotesque to talk about the genetics of the Valencians without taking into consideration the most relevant events that have taken place in the last milleniume which have an impact on the population".
Considered already: no effect because Christian and Muslim Valencians are likely to have been genetically identical. It is more likely it had an effect in Morocco or Algeria, with so many theoretical refugees arriving (in theory), but AFAIK that effect is also invisible.
"Why don't you just accept that your wonderful conclusions might be simply wrong in some aspects?"
They might. But prove it first before you ask that I "admit" anything.
In general I don't think they should be wrong and I think that just casting generic doubt is pointless. You must either prove the theory wrong or propose a theory that fits even better with the known facts. That is scientific method.
You are proving nothing wrong nor you are proposing any alternative theory. Just casting generic doubt without any meaningful support, what only makes me waste my time answering.
I can only hope this pointless non-discussion does not goes on like forever as sometimes happens with people who have very strong opinions.
@Carpetanuiq:
ReplyDeleteI see in your Wikipedia link that the "Desierto del Duero", that I remember from my youth (I was kinda obsessed with history and specially historical maths) as "Tierra de Nadie" (no man's land), was always populated and that archaeology supports this notion.
No wonder because there is a lot of myth with the Reconquista. In fact the Northern kingdoms were de facto vassals (paid tributes) to Cordoba until, in 1031, the Caliphate collapsed and the situation was reversed, culminating in the conquest of Toledo (an unopposed military march on a friendly Muslim vassal, who was compensated with the crown of Valencia instead). It was then, and only then, when Almoravids intervened, and the real Reconquista began, lasting some 170 years (excepted Granada, of course).
In mere 170 years there was no time, nor people (population growth was limited before the industrial era), to repopulate much. That does not mean that there were no punctual localized resettlements but overall it should not have altered the demography that much.
"Many probably of hispano-gothic ancestry admixed with arabo-sirian-bereber".
More like most if not all of Hispanic ("Roman") origin with no or almost no admixture.
Let's take a moment to consider the genetics of Abd el-Rhaman III. He was the heir of the Ummayad but he was at least 75% Basque (his mother and his father's mother were Basques). So even those Muslims claiming to be "Arab" (some aristocrats and that's it) were maybe 90% or more Iberian in fact.
If Muslim immigration in the Cordoba period was of any importance, we should see a lot of not just North African E1b-M81 but also related apportions of North African (and West Asian) J1. There's almost no J1 in all the peninsula (though the little that there is, it is concentrated indeed in the former Kingdom of Granada) and, while there is more E1b-M81, it is concentrated in Galicia, as well as other parts of the Western third of Iberia, bearing no correlation whatsoever with Muslim conquest, Christian reconquest or anything of the like.
Similarly, with all the alleged refugee flow southwards to North Africa, there is a surprising lack of Iberian Y-DNA in the region, including J2, G, I and R1b.
So all those stories clash with reality: they describe a highly inflated virtual reality with little connection with the real one.
"The hard task is to make a quantitative analysis of all these movements (both north to south and south to north)".
Indeed.
However, excepting aristocrats, I'm reasonably sure that it tends to zero.
And regarding the surname-mapper, I really do not need it to know where my direct relatives live. XD
But it's nice anyhow.
According to many reliable sources, the 'Moriscos' who were expelled from Valencia in 1609 accounted for more or less one third of the total population. Regardless of their genetic characteristics, probably a combination of Iberian and North African genes, the fact is that their absence meant that the genes of the 'colonizers' became more significant in percentage, which is, in my opinion, relevant. How should all this be incorporated into a genetic study? I really don't know.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you, I don't want this discussion to be endless either, and I really appreciate the chance to learn new things from people like you through debate. We all need to be more open-minded. For example, you think surnames are useless in population studies. I prefer to think that there might be a potential for them. Why not?
There are things that we'll never know, for example the exact numbers of past populations, etc., but there are experts who know better than us about these things and we should at least listen to them.
Don't get me wrong: I don't say that surnames are useless. I have used the paucity of Basque surnames, which are mostly in the truly family-indicators kind, to argue that in the last, say, 500 years or more there have been no sudden demographic expansions of the offspring of any exceptionally successful man, as is typically claimed by those who favor recent chronologies for everything, regardless of Prehistory (like Dienekes).
ReplyDeleteIn the Basque Country at least, excepting industrial era immigration, there does not seem to have been major demographic movements, much less any such hyper-expansion of say the López de Haro clan or some other jauntxo like the Ganboa, etc. Overall most men of the past (and probably women as well) have contributed in roughly similar amounts to the ancestry of present day Basques. And this can be proven because of surnames - but only because of surnames that are very genuinely family indicators and not those like Etxebarri (New Home) that have arisen several times.
It is very difficult to work with them in any case, notably because patronymics (Gómez, Johnson), toponyms (Toledo, Flanders), professional surnames (Zapatero, Smith) and others like nicknames (Calvo, Black) have arisen many many times each. And most surnames are of those kinds.
For example, my grandmother's surnames (two are used by the Spanish system: father's first and mother's first) were Salcedo Salcedo, but deeply rooted in Biscay, specifically in Santurtzi. With all the cultural load of Aranism there was always some debate in my family on their origins (because the surname is clearly romance meaning 'place of willows') and I can see using the statistical application provided above that it is somewhat common through the geography of the state (with specially strong presence in Navarre and Huesca but also Ciudad Real and Jaén). But where did it originate? That looks like an impossible task. How do you determine if Salcedo is native or not to Santurtzi or anywhere else? It's almost impossible. And yet the surname is somewhat rare everywhere, being no García or anything of the like.
To this discussion, I'd like to add this file:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.raco.cat/index.php/Estudis/article/viewFile/237660/319920
It's a comment on a book about the repopulation of Valencia. The book, written by Enric Guinot (Valencian professor, medieval historicist) states that Valencia was repopulated mainly by western Catalans who established more along the coast (80%) and the rest were Aragonese and Castilian settlers (10-20%). Muslims were a minority according to Guinot.
His work is based on surnames, not genetics, althought in this case surnames may be more useful. I have seen no serious DNA study that aims to clarify the population history in Valencia during the Middle Ages, so I'm open to new possibilites.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteGuinot's book is the reference work in the field. And the field, especially in the 70's and 80's, was a minefield, plagued with political and linguitic controversy. People at the university, including Guinot, allign with the idea that the Conquest of Valencia was the starting point in Valencian history. The newcomers constituted a new political unit and brought the language or languages that would finally produce Valencian, basically a dialect of Catalan. As I said, this is the viewpoint held by most scholars and also by the more left-wing population. In his book, Guinot reinforces these ideas with a really comprehensive account of the events, with the aim of settling the whole issue once and for all. One of the things he says is that the only language spoken in Valencia prior to the conquest was Arabic. According to him, there isn't a single piece of evidence showing that any sort of Romance language was spoken there at the time.
ReplyDeleteOn the other side of the controversy, which still lingers on in Valencian society but not with the same level of fierceness as a couple of decades ago, we have those people who think that Valencian is an independent language that was already spoken in our territory before the arrival of the Aragonese/Catalan. In this line of thought, they tend to minimise the possible numbers of the newcomers, especially the Catalans, maximising the role of the 'Mozárabe' population. A lot of people in the conservative parties, e.g. PP, share this type of ideology.
So what we have here is a mixture of genealogy, history and language with the result of two antagonistic ideological positions. One of the symbols of this fight is the actual Valencian flag. The pro-Catalan ones prefer the flag with just red and yellow stripes, while the other ones (colloquially called 'blaveros') prefer the one with an additional blue stripe on one of the sides, a flag which has eventually become official. Even Valencia FC was used as an element of this war, as we can see in the famous (and horrible looking) top that they used to wear in some away games, e.g. in this cup final against Real Madrid in 1979, which incidentally we won... (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4d8jgasZ2o).
It's funny because the concept of continuity, which I also adhere to, and which I think is a good principle to keep in any sort of research about language history or prehistory, is, in this case, favoured by people whose ideas lie outside the world of the scientific world. I must admit the whole thing is a bit of a paradox to me, and the more I think about it, the less clearly I see it.
I can only insist in the fact that the Catalan and Valencian genetics are quite distinct (not totally different but too different to substantiate the Guinot hypothesis or anything even remotely similar). I have already mentioned the Y-DNA differences but there is also some autosomal research that makes Valencians (from Alicante) cluster mostly with other Iberians (Castilians, Asturians) than Catalans (nor Andalusians either).
ReplyDeleteIt's difficult to spot the Valencians however because they were coded in yellow color (on white background). In any case they do not show any strong tendency towards Catalans, not at all. Instead they tend towards Castile, they overlap almost completely with Castile.
The best explanation for this is again the Paleolithic or Neolithic periods. Let's not forget that the Valencia, Murcia and coastal parts of East Andalusia were the core of Paleolithic Iberia (plus some around Girona and Lisbon mostly) - excluding the Cantabrian strip, that rather belonged to the "South French" area (Franco-Cantabrian region).
I think that the population continuity model fits best for the Valencian Country on light of the known genetic data. However the language is Eastern Catalan essentially (only ideology can serve to deny this). Population and language can have different origins and often do. In this case it is possible that trickle of colonists from East Catalonia, typically in positions of power, imposed their language on the pre-existent population.
"Where you live is not Europe, the demographic change is not related to neither Neolithic nor Middle Ages but most natives were essentially hunter-gatherers with very low population densities and all settlers were late industrial migrants. . . . they had dense agricultural societies that could withstand much better any immigration and also because most of the immigrants arrived before the industrial era[.]"
ReplyDeleteAll true.
"you can imagine massive demographic replacements happening almost overnight. But that is not the reality of Europe or nearly anywhere in the Old World"
Not on the same scale and not as often, definitely. But, there are exceptions: you note mass resettlement after WWII and Armenia, and surely there have been close calls (e.g. Bosnia, Darfur, Rwanda), even more recently. In Palestine, it is not agriculture, so much as allies, that have been critical. Absent the formation of Israel, would anyone even conceptualize Palestinians as being any more distinct than West and East and Oasis Libyans are from each other?
"In the past ethnicity or even religion did not matter so much, people just converted or learned the new language almost overnight, and also the means to perform genocides were not really at hand, nor was the intent almost ever."
I sincerely doubt this. We had the Crusdades and the Hundred Years Wars. Religion and language matters at least as much "then" as now, and probably moreso - when we see massacres in tit for tat wars of extermination between Muslims and Christians in villages across the Sahel in places like Nigeria.
I'm an atheist, but that doesn't mean that I don't give some historical credence to the genocidal accounts of the people of Moses slaughtering other tribes in the Bible. It may be rare, but I don't doubt that there have been as many undocumented genocides as genocides known to history.
And, of course, one needs far less than genocide for a new village to spring up where there was not one before founded predominantly by migrants. Folk wanderings are not mere delusions of 19th century German historians.
Yes, conversions happen. Faint remnants of Spain remain in Florida, of France in Louisiana, of the Dutch in New York and Indonesia, of the Sicilian Kingdom in a modern Italy modeled on a Napoleonic vision adopted by Tuscans, of Jews and Moors in Spain and perhaps of peoples all the way back of Cardium Pottery.
But, a city here, a distinct caste there, mass migrations, new settlements, obliterated villages, even Europe is not immune to these changes.
Often people bend and the peasants endure new conquerers by changing their spots. But, continuity isn't an iron clad rule and the more we know the more we find the quirks and exceptions that illustrate that fact.
I was going to write a long answer but not deserved, Andrew: all your examples are questionable of faulty and failed to cause any mass demographic change, specially involving large areas and distant unrelated peoples.
ReplyDeleteYou fail to bring a single example of mass demographic change, what even surprises me because I'm sure that there must be the occasional exception that confirms the rule.
As for religion, the main rule in the past was: convert the princes, that they will convert the people by the law and the sword.
You are totally obliterated by your US-centric view of things, as if there was anywhere any strong presence of Spaniards in Florida at all, for example (nominal control is not the same as settling). Do they still speak Spanish in Puerto Rico after a whole century-plus of US domination? and, more importantly (because language like religion can change easily), do they still look like admixed Native Americans after 500 years of "white" domination? Yes they do!
1. @heraus: Thanks Heraus, very usefull information about population movements in France I was not aware off (and anecdotically about the origin of the word Gabacho, used in Spain when someone wants to refer to frenchs despectivelly).
ReplyDelete2. @sanchis: "I'm afraid nothing really compares to these events in medieval Europe, and probably there is nothing comparable to Spanish Jewish persecution and Muslim expulsion until the times of Nazi Germany"
I disagree. Expulsions and progroms were frequent in all Europe during middle ages. Spain was the last country to expulse religious minorities. Later, during the war religions in modern times both parts catholics and lutherans made frequently religious cleansing. Of course this is another debate I prefer not to go into.
(to be continued)
4. @Maju:
ReplyDelete"I have already mentioned the Y-DNA differences but there is also some autosomal research that makes Valencians (from Alicante) cluster mostly with other Iberians (Castilians, Asturians) than Catalans (nor Andalusians either)"
That´s not surprising.
Alicante province was reconquested in 1248 by Castilla and settled by castellano-leoneses. In 1296 it passed to Aragón and was settled by catalans, mostly from Lerida However, until the Moriscos expulsion,the majority of population of "pre-reconquista" origin. The "Libros de Repartimientos" of Alicante has been lost.
http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentencia_Arbitral_de_Torrellas
Orihuela: From wikipedia "Sin embargo, su peso relativo con respecto a otras zonas de la provincia fue paulatinamente decreciendo desde mediados del siglo XVI, en gran parte debido las pestes de 1648 y 1678 (donde Orihuela fue repoblada por castellanos y de ahí que ahora se hable el español y su denominación actual de Orihuela).
Villena was a Lordship in Castillan hands (Manuel de Villena) until modern times (1525). From Wikipedia: “De los censos parciales realizados entre la década de 1330 y la de 1380 se extrae que al menos en 88% de los apellidos eran de ascendencia castellana, siendo el resto de origen catalán, hebreo, musulmán y francés”.
Elche was in castillan hands until 1348 (Manuel de Villena). In modern times it was a lordship in hands of the castillan Cardenas family, also Duques of Maqueda which probably settled peoples from Toledo there. As you know both in the Torrijos area in Toledo (also a Cardenas´s lordship) and Elche area there is shoes industry. That´s not casual.
Regarding the Tierra de Nadie (from Gredos and Guadarrama to Duero) my take is that there were islamic settlements with peoples and this is why the Comunidades de Villa y Tierra way of settlement was stablished. Merindades y alfoces was more suitable for areas with not previous settlements and with enough rain so that dispersed settlements were viable. Again I´m speaking from memory and I have to check my litterature.
In any case I repeat again: we must be very carefull when we asserting paleolithic or even neolithic ancestry in any of the spanish provinces.
@All: for me the conclusion is that micro-history (including genealogy) must be taken into account for genetics study.
ReplyDeleteTwo examples of apparently good interdisciplinary research:
A regional surname-genetics study: http://www.laopiniondezamora.es/zamora/2011/01/16/sayago-comarca-mayor-diversidad-genetica-sanabria-consanguinea/491145.html.
A genealogy-genetic study:
http://www.apellidocastilla.com/
In the category "Extraordinarios resultados" there is a link to genetic results.
I have mentioned some significant historical events in Iberia that, in my opinion, should be taken into account, and Maju seems to play down their importance. In fact, he basically ignores them. Now, why do I think they're 'significant'? Some commenters, including me, have given a series or arguments here. Let's see one more little example that might help:
ReplyDeleteAccording to INE (Instituto Nacional de Estadística), there are 7,664 people in Spain whose first surname is 'Francés' (meaning 'French' in both Spanish and catalan). 3,863 of those people were born in the Valencian Community, which is 50% of the total for Spain. Interesting, isn't it? Especially for a region with no borders with France. But maybe this little figure is just the top of the iceberg. Let's see some more examples of surnames connected with place names outside Valencia. The information is arranged as follows: surname, number of people with that surname who were born in the Valencian Community, and percentage over the total Spanish population with that surname. To avoid double counting, only the instances of appearance as a first surname have been included. Another interesting piece of information is that the population of the Valencian Community, a little over 5 million, amounts to 11% of the Spanish population.
- Calatayud: 4,506 (67%).
- Zaragoza/Zaragozá: 5,910 (41%).
- Soriano: 10,679 (29%).
- Navarro: 37,054 (21%).
- Perpiñá: 554 (46%).
- Alcañiz: 1,161 (39%).
- Roselló/Rosselló: 3,793 (42%).
- Teruel/Terol: 4,656 (49%).
- Esplugues: 342 (66%).
Obviously, we could add hundreds more surnames connected with place names, and, moreover, we could easily find old genealogical lines outside Valencia for many other surnames, including a percentage of the more common ones like 'García', 'Ruiz', 'Martín', 'López', 'Pla' or 'Puig'.
@Maju:
ReplyDelete"But where did it originate? That looks like an impossible task. How do you determine if Salcedo is native or not to Santurtzi or anywhere else? It's almost impossible. And yet the surname is somewhat rare everywhere, being no García or anything of the like."
¿¿¿ Where is the impossibility ???
Salcedo surname comes from the Salcedo Valley in Las Encartaciones (http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Las_Encartaciones). This valley (http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valle_de_Salcedo) included the present Zalla and Gueñes concejos.
Salcedo surname might come from the noble Salcedo family (varonía Ayala). The legend says this family comes from Asturias (but pls don´t beleive nor genealogical nor historical legends) or from someone which came from this valley. If your family does not know its origins it is more likely the later. I have a surname not from a place not far from this area (not my first nor my second; maybe 20th or so).
The map of this surname shows a very tipical pattern (forgetting contemporary populations sinks such as big cities): frequent in the area where it originates and close areas (Vizcaya and Navarra); and then frequent in La Mancha (first step of repoblación following reconquista) and Andalucia (last step of repoblación).
One link you might find of interest if you are interested in genealogy: http://www.euskalnet.net/laviana/gen_bascas/salcedo.htm
"On the other side of the controversy, which still lingers on in Valencian society but not with the same level of fierceness as a couple of decades ago, we have those people who think that Valencian is an independent language that was already spoken in our territory before the arrival of the Aragonese/Catalan. In this line of thought, they tend to minimise the possible numbers of the newcomers, especially the Catalans, maximising the role of the 'Mozárabe' population. A lot of people in the conservative parties, e.g. PP, share this type of ideology."
ReplyDeleteMy thoughts are: what happened in the past has nothing to do with current politics nor ideology. Blaveros and pro-catalanists can imagine whatever they want, but the truth is there, and remains to be discovered and clarified. Either if Valencians are mostly descended from Catalans and Aragonese who arrived after reconquista or not, an ideology can't reconstruct history, specially if this ideology doesn't have a clue about what science means.
"I can only insist in the fact that the Catalan and Valencian genetics are quite distinct (not totally different but too different to substantiate the Guinot hypothesis or anything even remotely similar). I have already mentioned the Y-DNA differences but there is also some autosomal research that makes Valencians (from Alicante) cluster mostly with other Iberians (Castilians, Asturians) than Catalans (nor Andalusians either)."
I'm waiting for a work which study the population history of Valencia and its relationship with Catalonia and Aragon carefully. I've seen never that kind of study. Valencians and Catalans appear to be different, but to me, this means little to nothing. Why? Take a sample of 100 persons from one neighbourhood in Barcelona, say, Nou Barris. Take another sample from the same city but another neigbourhood, for example Pedralbes, and another from Lleida. The results are that the three populations are equally related, or that one population from Barcelona is closer to the population from Lleida than the other one from Barcelona. Another more extreme example: sample a family and their neighbours, and compare them with a family and their neighbours from another town. Results: there's no relationship between living in the same town and genetic affinities.
Now, if a sample of Valencians taken from Valencia city and another of Barcelonians taken from Barcelona look different, I'd be suprised at all. Do you understand why in this case I trust more surnames than genetics?
"I think that the population continuity model fits best for the Valencian Country on light of the known genetic data. However the language is Eastern Catalan essentially (only ideology can serve to deny this). Population and language can have different origins and often do. In this case it is possible that trickle of colonists from East Catalonia, typically in positions of power, imposed their language on the pre-existent population."
I think it's safe to assume we still don't know if there was replacement or not. There was some sort of cotinuity for sure, but not necessarily too important: look at the Balearic islands, most people aren't descended from people who lived there 1000 years ago, and who was massacrated by several invasions.
Notice that Valencian is closest to the western varietes of Catalan (spoken in Lleida and Tarragona) than to East Catalan.
Even a 1 per mil would not be notable in any statistics, Jesús. Those statistics which mention surnames in the thousands do not amount in any case to anything meaningful. I have no idea what you mean by that therefore.
ReplyDeleteMaju, do you understand the concept of "example"?
ReplyDeletecarpetanuig, I agree with what you say. The repopulation history of the Valencia region is really complex, and the role of Castilians must also be stressed. In fact, there's a portion of the territory, sometimes called 'La Valencia Castellana' (Utiel, Requena, etc.), which was added as recently as the 19th c.
ReplyDeleteI also agree that this is not the moment to start a debate about atrocities in Europe through time. What made me think about Nazi Germany compared to the expulsion of the 'Moriscos' (1609), which are obviously quite different types of events, was the careful organization and even the bureaucratic efficiency involved in both large-scale criminal actions.
What I do not understand is the meaning of your "example", Jesús.
ReplyDeleteMaju, do you know what happened with my comment, the last one?
ReplyDeleteSure: went to spam automatically. Recovered now. Sorry.
ReplyDeleteI could have imagined... thanks :)
ReplyDelete"My thoughts are: what happened in the past has nothing to do with current politics nor ideology"
ReplyDeleteAgreed. I would rephrase as: what happened in the past, is completely irrelevant for today´s and future politics.
@sanchis: ok, agreed. Pls note that I stressed castillian rol only to refute Maju points of "proterozoic" descent of today´s Comunidad de Valencia human population.
Regarding Moriscos (called andalousians in Maghreb) there is a pair of papers refered to in Dienekes blog about Tunisia genetics. The results are quite puzzling.
Regarding surnames and dna coincidentally Jean Manco has posted about a similar subject in UK:
http://dna-forums.org/index.php?/blog/2/entry-174-surnames-and-y-dna/
It is a nice sumary of the origin of british surnames that we can extrapolate, to some extent, to Spain.
I lost track of how you guys arrived here but this claim:
ReplyDelete... "what happened in the past, is completely irrelevant for today´s and future politics".
... is so absolutely wrong that I'm flippant it can be even suggested.
It is also totally against the Barojan concept that titles my blogs: "For what they were we are, for what we are they will be" ("Izan zirelako gara, izan garelako izango dira").
It is totally wrong: we are for what the people of the past were and did, we would not be otherwise. If Castile would not have invaded Navarre, I would not be forced to carry Spanish "nationality" and be subject to Spanish legal and political institutions. I may even not speak any Spanish at all. It is just an example, there are so many!
"Pls note that I stressed castillian rol only to refute Maju points of "proterozoic" descent of today´s Comunidad de Valencia human population".
Is that because this "Castilian role" behaves magically like the river Guadiana at its origins, appearing or disappearing depending on whether it is convenient or not for our beliefs? Meh.
"If Castile would not have invaded Navarre" with great help from basques. Just a sample (from wikipedia):
ReplyDelete"La reina Juana I de Castilla el 28 de febrero de 1513 otorgó al escudo de Guipúzcoa doce cañones en representación de los que los guipuzcoanos oñacinos habían capturado en la denominada batalla de Velate a las fuerzas navarro-gasconas".
In any case by this sentence I meant that advances / changes in knowledge about past events must and in general does not change present political rights and decisions.
Regarding castillian role in south Valencia repoblación I take your sentence (which btw does not make any sense to me) as aknowledgment
that population replacement was huge there.
Sorry to say, I can not continue anymore this interesting discussion.
I was talking of 1199.
ReplyDelete"I take your sentence (which btw does not make any sense to me) as aknowledgment
that population replacement was huge there".
In truth I cannot say more than I did before: IMO there could not be Catalan nor Castilian colonization with the Y-DNA data we have but as the historical info is apparently contradictory or at least very confuse and the data is not exhaustive enough (we'd need more localized data with all the nit-pickinness of "Valencia was settled from Tortosa", "Alicante from Toledo"...)
It is always possible that some localities were colonized at near 100% levels but IMO most people just stayed put. Not just because of genetic reasons but because, in a Medieval demographic-economic structure, there were not enough potential colonists overnight at peasant level (population grew only very slowly, when it did at all). Any such massive colonization of a huge area like all the Kingdom of Valencia would have left depopulated the origin areas.
Not to mention what to do with the natives, the Muslim and Christian peasants that worked the fields and tended the sheep before the northern conquerors arrived. Because the expulsion of the Moriscos in the 17th century cannot be applied to the alleged colonization by either Castile or Catalonia in the 13th century (it's not retroactive in effect).
So in general I am very skeptic of all you say and I'm staying on my initial ideas, always in wait of better and improved data that should give us a better resolution picture.
1. 1199 ? Well, also in this occasion basques elites, some of them navarese at the begining of this event were of great help (it is fair to say this is under hot ideologized historiographic debate) for the conquest.
ReplyDeleteMaju, pls do not blame past basque elites for this treason. At this times strong linguistic or ethnic identities did not make sense at all for them (nobility, city oligarchies): they could identify with a dinasty, with their own lineage or their corporative peers, never with their fellow same-language speakers. And these identities were really liquid: quick oportunistic swifts were at the order.
These elites could see that after the conquest of Ebro valley (Zaragoza and others) by Aragonese and their
alliance with a strong Castile against Navarre, this kingdom had little future. And history gave them reason. I suppose that this and other later episodes are the cause that basques-navarese and basques does not like each other too much in our days.
Today, in a postnationalism era, elites are acting exactly the same way. It is not surprising for me that the more dogmatic nationalists in the provinces are also leftists. Spanish nationalism is of a different species.
2. Regarding Valencia I think replacement at Orihuela (the most important city south of Valencia at these times)case is clear enough. Others might be more grey. There is a new, and surprising for me, result about andalousians in Tunez, relevant for this discussion. You can find it at Dienekes. It seems that no R y-chromosome was found among them...
3. To end, pls let me add a corollary to above proposition, relevant in a scientific blog: advances / changes in knowledge about past events must not change present political rights and decisions) and therefore scientists (I include historians here) must refrain from dogmatic positions and data/facts manipulation.
"Maju, pls do not blame past basque elites for this treason".
ReplyDeleteI will, of course. Exploiters, selfish enemies of the community. It's not traitors against the nation but traitors against the people.
I'm not going to argue politics with you here: this is "my home" an home rules apply. Similarly the Basque Country is my/our home and home rules apply just the same: it is a matter of democracy: of people's power, of the very essences of humanism, which you insult with your disdain of defensive self-organization (on ethnic or any other natural basis, like class, gender, etc.)
Regardless how we judge the past, what matters is that it has forged our present reality. The past does not just matter now but it's the foundations of the now. Similarly the now is the foundation of the future.
"result about andalousians in Tunez"
What are you talking about? Andalusians are from Andalusia, the people of Tunisia are known as Tunisians. Provide a link if real and relevant.
"advances / changes in knowledge about past events must not change present political rights and decisions"
I have no idea what you're talking about. There's only one political right: the right of every people to sefl-organize freely and the duty of every people to respect their neighbors self-organization. That's usually known as democracy or the right of self-determination but it can also be described in Biblical terms: do to your neighbor as you wish for yourself. In other words: respect if you wish to be respected.
And no respect for those who do not respect.
But you are distorting the sense of this discussion on population genetics. You have the right to disagree with me on politics but you do not have the right to discuss politics in this blog, in an entry that is NOT political.
So any further political digression will be deleted (ad disciplinary measures may be extended if need be). Behave. I already got most angry tonight because of the grandson of immigrants was arguing against today's immigrants. Spaniards believe they have all rights and the rest none.
If you want to persist in such disrespect, go to Antena 3 or Radio Vatican.
1. I do not like censorship so this is my last comment in this blog.
ReplyDeleteAnyway I´m not talking about politics; I´m talking about history and historical sociology, both relevant for population genetics. I´m trying to explain events of the past you talked about, conquest of Navarra. If you read it with political glasses it´s up to you.
2. FYI expulsed moriscos were called Andalousians in Maghreb. Here is the link:
http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2011/08/tunisian-y-chromsomes-and-mtdna.html
3. Let me end with a question. You said: "There's only one political right: the right of every people to sefl-organize freely and the duty of every people to respect their neighbors self-organization"
What is the minimum unit of political self-organisation ?
What is the final equilibrium of a society based on this principle ?
2. "Andalusians, who are supposed to be migrants from southern Spain, do not exhibit any substantial contribution of European lineages, suggesting a North African origin for this ethnic group".
ReplyDeleteBasically: they are not true Andalusians
Or... they originated in such a peculiar subgroup in the Andalusian population that they were of 100% North African origin. There were mercenaries and whole dynasties of North African Berber origin in several parts of Andalusia, specially Málaga and Almería and yet nobody has found notable North African genetics in all Andalusia, just a very small excess of J1.
The third option, that there was a massive demic replacement in Andalusia, a region well known for not having suffered any such colonization but a mere replacing of the aristocracy, is just impossible.
3. Last warning: no political debate here.
Your comment is highly especulative, as usual. This forces me to make this last comment in your blog (where it seems only you is allowed to make political comments), just to clarify my position regarding this moriscos discussion.
ReplyDeleteWikipedia entry on moriscos, with quantitative details: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morisco (good enough entry).
A link with details of the Tunisian moriscos:
http://moriscostunez.blogspot.com/2011/08/huellas-de-los-moriscos-expulsados.html.
The so called andalusians tested in this paper are individuals from Zaghouan town, and therefore according to this comment
“Els valencians arribaren a Tunísia amb una identitat més forta que els altres moriscos de la península. Mantingueren eixa identitat i es quedaren a Zaghouan, Soleiman, i una bona part a Testour», així ens ho explica Raja Yassine Bahri, catedràtica de la Universitat de Tunis qui ens acompanya en este viatge per la geografia morisca al nord de Tunísia” on this link
http://mas.levante-emv.com/especiales/9doctubre/%C2%ABde-terra-endins-de-mar-enlla%C2%BB/
they probably were of valenciá origin. I´m not sure if before testing the researchers have make sure that tested individuals were of morisco descent. I suppose they did.
The sample is 32, and resuls are:
E around 43%, most (40%) E-1b1b1b.
F almost 10%
J 47% most (43%) J1
If we consider bellow propositions to be true:
Proposition 1: Pre-islamic Y-chromosomes (i.e. I, R,..) in all Iberia were different from Pre Islamic Y-chromosomes in Maghreb (i.e. E).
Proposition 2: Most moriscos were direct descendants of pre-islamic populations in Iberia, that is hispano-goths converted first into islam and then (forced) converted into christianity.
Proposition 3: Most moriscos in Tunez have kept their Y-chromosome along generations.
Then we would expect to find european Y-chromosomes (I,R) among andalousians in Tunez. But they did´nt.
If you want to make political comments, I have another political blog, which you will not like: http://forwhatwearetheywillbe.blogspot.com/
ReplyDeleteAll I said is the past makes us and I put a historical example which you considered political because you are one of those annoying and boring Spanish nationalists which I try to avoid in the net by using primarily English.
And yes, this is my blog, and I can cheat and skip my own rules. You cannot.
"cuyo número fue calculado en unas 260 personas".
ReplyDelete...
"Este embarque, que se llamó de “catalanes”, superaba las 2.000 personas"
...
"305 de Fraga"
That is 2500 individuals... which suddenly become 50,000 somehow... but still a mere anecdote considering that the Iberian peninsula back then had 5-7 million people, what makes at least 1 million in the Crown of Aragon.
And you are telling me of massive demographic changes on 1 million by moving a documented 0.25% or an alleged (but not documented) 5% at most?
That's the problem with some kind of history which is built on anecdotes rather than scientific method.
"I suppose they did".
I guess so - we must assume it by default (though it's always good to know well the details because some samples, now and then, are bad samples).
But the results clearly indicate that they were peculiar communities at the best... or that they have lost their Y-DNA markers altogether since arriving to Tunisia. Or that, as happened in other cases like the famous Kalash of Pakistan, their legends about Greek origins were just legends.
"The sample is 32, and resuls are:
E around 43%, most (40%) E-1b1b1b.
F almost 10%
J 47% most (43%) J1"
That's interesting to know, thanks.
F(xJ) might be R1b (or other lineages common in Iberia like G, I, T...) unless there is a separate tab that specifically says it is not that. Was there one?
Still, even if all the F would be R1b, it is still a very "Africanized" Y-DNA pool almost exactly like any other population of the region. Is it possible that, as in so many other communities, the traditions have been kept by women? (I wonder because it's very odd this nonconformity with oral tradition).
It is also possible that only Berber (or Arabized Berber) colonies were targeted in this repression? Because the vast majority of Moriscos must have been of genuine Iberian (Mudejar) roots, so they should have typical Iberian lineages, not North African ones.
It doesn't help to explain anything and it looks like at least this community of "Moriscos" has been totally Africanized in their Y-DNA pool or, for whatever reason, was always that way (very strange).
Probably proposition 3 is wrong or the sample is odd.
"And yes, this is my blog, and I can cheat and skip my own rules"
ReplyDeleteYes, this is why once we finish this Moriscos issue I won´t comment anymore. I know you have another blog. I read it occasionally, just for fun. In any case pls do not insult me. I´m not a nationalist of any kind, spanish or whatever. I´ve already discussed with you about this. In any case my interest is scientific, not politic.
Now to the Moriscos point.
Pls note first that wikipedia numbers are estimations. I do not know how correct they are, but I know your comparison is wrong. Moriscos were concentrated in Aragon (Ebro valley), Valencia and Granada. In these areas the replacement could be called massive (fuzzy word): for instance it is said that they were 1/3 of Valencia Kingdom population.
Regarding F, I have no access to the paper. I saw the figures in wikipedia and someone has deleted them this afternoon. In the abstract they say no Y-chromosome from europe. I suppose they know what they are talking about. In any case, you are right, if they were R or any other it would be too low and results surprising anyway.
"It is also possible that only Berber (or Arabized Berber) colonies were targeted in this repression?".
I do not think so. The cleansing was religious, not ethnic. They did not had the tools to distinguish berebers from local muslims.
Sample is indeed small and not representative, since all come from the same town. But this could be the tip of an iceberg.
Either spanish historians, which believe proposition 2 is correct are wrong, either geneticists and some nationalists, which believe first proposition is correct are wrong. At present I´m agnostic, we need more information. Let´s hope that further research is done and keep an eye to this issue.
Good luck !
See how figures fluctuate?: Valencia could not have less than 300,000 inhabitants then, so 1/3 would be 100,000 but then your source says it was only 50,000 in all the Crown of Aragon and then they can only document 2500.
ReplyDeleteSo you are choosing to believe whatever you want.
Also those are figures of expelled farmers but nowhere we read that people was invited or forced to emigrate from any other place to take the place of those emigrants. In fact you have put examples of at least some villages that were left totally deserted. There was no immigration related to this expulsion, only forced emigration.
And probably not so many people as you and others choose to believe without clear basis.
"I saw the figures in wikipedia and someone has deleted them this afternoon".
In Wikipedia (unless an admin uses a rare privilege) nothing is permanently deleted: it survives in the history section. The last change took place on August 25 (pevious version is from Aug 6th) and the only change was to remove politically charged or otherwise nonexistent categories.
So either your ref. is there or is not but it has not vanished in any case.
"In any case, you are right, if they were R or any other it would be too low and results surprising anyway".
I'm glad we can agree on this at least.
I see you're very interested in the 'Morisco' issue. I suggest that you take a look at this web page: (http://xarquia.blogspot.com/search/label/expulsi%C3%B3), with lots of information about the issue and some interesting figures.
ReplyDelete@Maju: My last comment, the one that you are commenting (1/3, agreement etc...) has disappeared. Pls check. I think it can clarify some points to the reader.
ReplyDeleteClarifications:
when I say muslims I wanted to say ex-muslims. Even if they had the tools for distinguish berebers from locals they wouldn´t use it. Again that was not in the spirit of the times and did not fit the strategy. Just religious cleansing. They could know who was a morisco because they had lists of new baptised. Again historical sociology help us to know which were the identities relevant at each epoch.
Wikipedia: I saw the data in this wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maghreb_people
As you can see there is a table with distribution of national and ethnic groups by Y-chromosome. The F that appeared is the one which appears in this table. I ignore wikipedia policies and I don´t care. Beleive it or not, the data was there and then disappeared.
@Sanchis: thanks for the link !
Effectively it was randomly sent to the spam folder. Sorry about. Fixed in any case.
ReplyDelete"Beleive it or not, the data was there and then disappeared".
No. That article was not changed: I can tell you that for sure (99.999999999% sure). It'd be extremely strange that an admin would use special powers designed only for the most extreme cases to delete some genetic data - a practical impossibility. You must have taken it from somewhere else (or it is still there - haven't checked).
The table you mention is interesting anyhow.
Thanks!
ReplyDeleteAll these estimations must come from Lapeyre.
Some data:
Kingdom of Valencia:
“Se calcula que en el Reino de Valencia (at the time of the conquest) vivían unas 200.000 personas. El aumento de la población del reino de Valencia no llegó a un 5% con la inmigración aragonesa y catalana. Y esta inmigración iba aproximadamente por mitad y mitad”. This 200.000 was composed with a majority of muslims with mozárabs and jewish minorities.
After the conquest some muslims floaded and others converted to christianity. The aragonese and catalan repoblación (5% of the total population at the time)is detailed in the Libro de Repartiment: “En él se registran meticulosamente las donaciones de casas o terrenos hechas por el rey Jaime I a aragoneses, catalanes, navarros, ingleses, húngaros, italianos y franceses, es decir a todos los que participaron en la cruzada que fue la conquista de Valencia”.
Later in the XV century “Los conflictos en los Condados catalanes y en el Reino de Aragón hacen que la burguesía huya de las ciudades al campo o al Reino de Valencia, donde no se dan los estos problemas. Barcelona entraría en franca decadencia y por el contrario la ciudad de Valencia creció hasta alcanzar los 75.000 habitantes a mediados de siglo". Second city in size in the whole Spain.
As a result of all these processes at the time of the expulsion, the moriscos were around 1/3 of the population of the Kingdom and the rest undistinguished christians (which included mozárabs, moriscos converted before 1527, arago-catalans in the north-center (Castellón and Valencia) and castillians in the south (Orihuela), and a miscelanea of europeans and mediterraneans.
"A l'Aragó eren 60.000, força més que a Catalunya, poc més de 4.000. Ara, on n'hi havia més, de llarg, era al País Valencià, cap al 34% de la població (entre 117.000 i 170.000). En aquest territori, el primer on es va aplicar el decret d'expulsió, les conseqüències econòmiques van ser molt negatives i la repoblació posterior, molt lenta.
In conclusion is after such turmoil if you find a single Edetano, Contestano or Ilercavón I would label it as a miracle.
Even if all those 75,000 would be new arrivals (of course not!), it'd still be a fraction of the 300,000 or more inhabitants that the realm had in the 15th century. Let's say that the population grew some 10%, mostly with Catalans.
ReplyDelete"As a result of all these processes"...
You have mentioned only one process: the growth of Valencia city. Two processes if we include that almost trivial 5% of colonization.
Overall you would have added at most 15% of the people and yet you dare say that the change was absolute. No way!
"In conclusion is after such turmoil"...
What turmoil?!
"... if you find a single Edetano, Contestano or Ilercavón I would label it as a miracle".
You would not find them because identities are linguistic and cultural but genetically? 85% or more.
1. Such a growth of a city in half a century without any medical advance almost surely means inmigration, mostly from Aragon and Catalonia in this case I suppose.
ReplyDeleteAre you claiming that 85% of people in Comunidad de Valencia are descendants of peoples that were already in Comunidad de Valencia in pre-roman times ?
Pls repeat your account.
To what Y-chromosomes did they belong to according to you ? Just to remind you, as soon as this is proved to be false.
2. Yet another surname DNA research, a recent one:
http://www.nature.com/ejhg/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ejhg2011162a.html.
The proposition that if the Colon had been from Italy its surname would had been Colombo is just false. Foreing surnames seldom keep teir original spelling when installed abroad. We have many examples of castellinazed italian surnames in Sevilla. The same is valid for any region. This might be one of the dificulties when selecting people for genetic analisys just by surname,without aditional genealogical information.
"as soon as this is proved to be false"
ReplyDeleteHmmm...after a second thought this will not be easy to prove, if the surrounding populations (aragon, catalan, castillan, french...) had the same Y-chromosomes: it could had been the case of several population turnovers without Y-chromosome change.
"Are you claiming that 85% of people in Comunidad de Valencia are descendants of peoples that were already in Comunidad de Valencia in pre-roman times?"
ReplyDeleteI would say that 100% of them are, as well as many people elsewhere. 85% could be an estimate of ancestry but all people have some, more or less.
So, if you would allow me to rephrase your question as "are you estimating that some 85% of Valencian ancestry is from the Iberian tribes living in that area in pre-Roman times" my answer would be surely yes. I am uncertain about the exact figure but, very roughly yes: the majority of the ancestry should be local.
And not just because your own data seems to support it but because genetic data describes the Valencian Country as a exceptional landscape in Eastern Iberia, with more affinities in many cases with the Western third of the Peninsula (Portugal, Galicia, Leon, Extremadura...)
See: http://forwhattheywereweare.blogspot.com/2011/04/guest-post-by-argiedude-west-east-y-dna.html
This cannot be explained by anything that happened in the Reconquista or Roman times but needs to be explained with Neolithic flows.
However for a group of lineages, Valencia clusters best with its own geographical region of East Iberia but seldom shows any particular affinity with Catalonia (nor Castile) of all places.
It is a quite peculiar genetic landscape that cannot be explained in recent historical terms. I would dare say that 15% demographic change is an inflated figure in fact.
1. Forget for the moment Argiedude post, that will be discussed later.
ReplyDeleteLet´s do the math.
Population of the whole kingdom of Valencia at conquest 200.000 mostly muslims with mozarabs, jewish and catalanoaragonese newcomers minorities. Jewish are neutral for the discussion here therefore we can forget them. Moriscos either fled to the kingdom of Granada either were expulsed in 1609. If we assume that most people kept their faith, that marginalized populations as moriscos had a stable or dicreasing rate of population growth, that privileged populations as christians (not nobles) had small increasing population growth (small because at this times). Population of the kingdom of Valencia at the time of the expulsion: 450.000 of which 150.000 where Moriscos. From which mathematical logic can you deduce that from 85% to 100% of present Comunidad de Valencia = Kingdom of Valencia are of pre-roman origin ? If you just convert the 200.000 muslims into 150.000 moriscos (population decrease). Where the did all the other 300.000 came ?
No mater how you change assumptions, conclusions won´t change too much. Maju: 1+1 = ¿?
2. Without former information about Argidude methodology (sampling etc...) it is very difficult to asses its results. I won´t waste my time trying to explain results which might be spurious.
The only thing I have no doubt from Argidude interpretations is that he knows anything (nor you if you are unable to explain these data with post islamic events) of spanish history. This is typical not only in amateurs but also in population genetics research.
Only one example suffice:
Argiedude says:
“This unlikely scenario would have to be nothing less than a complete and total population rearrangement, no half measures, given that E-M81 is actually higher (much higher) in regions barely occupied by the Moors than in the stronghold of Granada, where the Moors ruled for 800”
Clearly Argidude knowledge of spanish history is close to zero. That´s what exactly happened: in Granada there was almost complete replacement of moorish population.
Those are not "maths" but speculations: I cannot agree with most of the IFs and it'd be pointless to discuss them in detail (again). Arabs are not decreasing in Israel, but growing faster than Jewish immigration can overcome - just to put an example. There's no reason why the Moriscos would decrease other than conversion (what is irrelevant for our debate on genetics) and I understand that the growth from your medieval 200,000 people and my early modern 300,000+ estimate is mostly due to vegetative growth (still both figures are estimates and we cannot really say much beyond that).
ReplyDeleteThe relevance of Argiedude's post is not what he knows or does not know of Iberian history but what he knows of actual Y-DNA surveys, which is no doubt infinitely more than you do.
And he does not just know in the passive sense but he also takes his time to explain that for us, including some maps which are the really relevant part of the post (why to debate the text if you have not even looked at the maps?)
The most relevant finding is that the Valencian Country is an outlier in its geographic zone of Eastern Iberia. That I can only explain because of different Neolithic input, because of greater Neolithic Cardial colonization. There is no other prehistorical or historical explanation that matches, not just to explain the Valencian anomaly but also the West Iberian one.
As for Granada, there was no population replacement. Granadinos were assimilated and the first Castilian language grammar was created specifically for that purpose (I had to comment a history text on that matter in my "selectividad" exam, so many years ago).
I know we could go through lengthy circular debate on this matter as well because you seem persuaded that, somehow, Old Castile was able to generate masses of colonists (yet these would end speaking Andalusian dialect, so extremely different from true Castilian in all, more different than Argentine or Mexican dialects, almost impossible to understand without some training, almost as distinct in pronunciation as French to my ears, how curious!)
The issue of repopulation in medieval and early modern Iberia is probably worth a deep research but I feel that you cannot do that because you are persuaded of imaginary massive repopulations that never took place. Also it's impossible that the always near-empty Plateau would be able to colonize the rich Andalusia, densely populated since old.
You need to understand that in all times and ages the Plateau was a mostly passage, an steppary vacuum, and never ever a demographic powerhouse. In the Paleolithic, the Neolithic, Metal Ages... and of course Middle Ages and Modernity most of the population of Iberia by much has been located in the coastal periphery and the Guadalquivir Valley. The interior is and was almost empty.
This is my last comment (this time for true !).
ReplyDelete1. You can play as much as you like with the assumptions of my mathematical model or variations of it, you won´t get 85% nor close. You´ll need a Mozarabs growth rate, muslims growth rate, muslim to christian conversion pre 1529 etc..., all worth of Guiness world record for explaining vegetative growth.
2. "Old Castile was able to generate masses of colonists"
Again Not only Old castile. Galicia, Asturias, Cantabria, Basque country (that explains basque surnames in Spain and some toponims), Navarese (Idem), Aragonese, Catalans,New castilians and West Andalusian etc...
The Kingdom of Granada has an easy explanation if you knew a minimum of andalusian history.
3.The authority argument about Argiedude is not acceptable. It wouldn´t be even if I knew who he is,its academic titles, papers etc...Without information about sampling methodology I won´t invest a minute, with more reason if after a diagonal reading of its post I´ve found many historical inaccuracies in its interpretations.
The only figure of all mentioned to date that seem respectable are:
ReplyDelete1. 2500 exiles documented in all the Crown of Aragon, most of them from Catalonia. I presume the total number were many more but I don't know why this or that guesstimate should be more correct than another.
2. 5-7 million inhabitants in the Iberian Peninsula in the 15th century (N.J. Pounds' estimate). Today Valencian Country has 9% of the pop. of the peninsula, so estimating 300,000, as I did is a low figure (500,000 should be more correct).
On the other hand estimating the population in the Middle Ages in 200,000 is very speculative because normally there's not enough statistical data yet to do such estimates. That is why Pounds does not dare to propose figures for the Middle Ages proper even if his book is about Medieval (and not Early Modern) economy.
...
"that explains basque surnames in Spain"...
ReplyDeleteThere are very few Basque surnames in Spain other than Madrid (to some extent) and the well-known Ibarra surname and some names like Navarro or Vizcaino that point to Basque origin (but are more frequent outside Euskal Herria). Truly typical Basque surnames like Aguirre (Agirre in Basque spelling) or Echevarria, Echeverria (Etxebarria, Etxeberria)are almost unheard of outside the Basque Country (or neighboring, ethnically related, provinces like Cantabria or La Rioja).
Attending to the frequencies of "Navarros", Navarrese colonists could have been some 1% in some areas (Aragon and the provinces south of it mostly). Attending to the "Vicainos", some provinces (including Lugo, oddly enough) could have got close to 1% of Western Basque colonists (then often known as Vizcainos (Biscayne) collectively). At most you can muster some, say, 10% male colonists in the most densely resettled areas, like Albacete or Almería provinces. Want to go nuts and say 20% instead? Arguable. But 50% or 100%? No way!
"The authority argument about Argiedude is not acceptable".
It's not authority argument: the article is correct and I stand for what he states there. Otherwise I would not have published.
I know this guy and he knows what he's talking about on genetics. You instead do not. You know it and try to divert the matter to more or less speculative and anecdotal history but genetics are hard data: facts much more real and clear than all the speculations you and your historians' references can establish.
"Without information about sampling methodology I won´t invest a minute, with more reason if after a diagonal reading of its post I´ve found many historical inaccuracies in its interpretations".
I have directed you to the main source of the data which is Alonso 2008 (look above in the links). His entry only analyzes some data that I had analyzed before in a different way. His method of analysis just emphasize some obvious contrasts, notably the Western Third anomaly (high "Neolithic" and North African Y-DNA) and the Valencian anomaly that is similar (but not identical) within the Western Third of the peninsula.
If you want to reject all this most relevant data and analysis, I can only reject you as someone worth debating with. You cannot deny the genetic data when debating blood ancestry.
Adams 2008, sorry.
ReplyDeleteAlonso's is another paper on European R1b.
1. Again you force me to document the Kingdom of Granada case, in order to show the value of some genetic / archeologic interpretations / especulations / fantasies.
ReplyDeleteArgidude published in your blog with your support ("the article is correct and I stand for what he states there"):
"This unlikely scenario would have to be nothing less than a complete and total population rearrangement, no half measures, given that E-M81 is actually higher (much higher) in regions barely occupied by the Moors than in the stronghold of Granada, where the Moors ruled for 800”
a) From Jobbling et all paper published in American Journal of Human Genetics:
"es que ese dato concuerda perfectamente con los registros históricos. Tras la revuelta de los moriscos en el siglo XVI, la mayoría de ellos fueron deportados de sus lugares de origen en Granada y Valencia llevados al exilio al noroeste de España” por las ordenes de expulsión de moriscos ordenadas por Felipe III en 1609, que “diezmaron los guetos de Valencia y Andalucía, pero que poco pudieron hacer contra las dispersas e integradas poblaciones de Extremadura y Galicia"
b) Here "more or less speculative and anecdotal history" explainig
with full detail (from historical documents) the process of expulsion.
http://www.refdugr.com/documentos/articulos/26.pdf
c) And a paper with a more micro local history case, about a Guadix parrish. This one is no doubt incredibly especulative.
An extract:
"En cuanto a la composición étnica de la parroquia, presenta para el periodo 1539-1570 un predominio de la población morisca —según los criterios de calificación,
entre el 75 y el 93% de las familias—, herencia de su pasado como morería de la ciudad
durante época mudéjar, habiendo de destacar la presencia de matrimonios mixtos
que, aunque limitados (1’8% de las familias), indican una cierta asimilación. Tras la
expulsión de los moriscos los valores se invierten, predominando las familias cristianas
viejas (95’6%), permaneciendo tan solo 4 familias moriscas, 7 familias mixtas, 2 familias negroafricanas y 6 gitanas".
(cont.)
the link to the paper:
ReplyDeletehttp://digibug.ugr.es/bitstream/10481/2764/1/Garrido.09.pdf
d) and finally one about the same issue from a Russian hispanist:
http://hispanismo.cervantes.es/documentos/prokopenko.pdf
Extracts:
"Un conjunto de especialistas considera que la repoblación espontánea de Granada (es
decir, la iniciada a partir de 1595) fue un éxito. Así, García la Torre estima que la mejor
prueba del éxito de la política migratoria de Felipe II es la dinámica demográfica que le
siguió: Si en el período comprendido entre 1591 y 1768 la población de la Corona castellana aumentó por término medio en un 122%, en el Reino de Granada el crecimiento demográfico fue del 265%, en el obispado de Almería del 505% y en las Alpujarras del 514%. Además, el ritmo de crecimiento fue superior en el siglo XVII al del XVIII, siendo prueba de lo cual, en particular, la dinámica de bautismos en diez pueblos de la parte oriental del Reino. La dinámica demográfica positiva del siglo XVII se vio interrumpida únicamente por las epidemias de peste de 1637-1641, 1648-1649 en menor grado y especialmente de 1678-1681. Sólo Murcia (275%) y Asturias (303%) superaban en toda distancia los índices de Granada. La única explicación posible de semejante crecimiento de la población en Granada es la influencia de la inmigración
"
Pls note that the conclusion in this paragraph is the same that MUST be applied to Valencia case.
And:
"“El origen de 8.535 familias está registrado. De ellas,
aproximadamente el 65% correspondía al de familias procedentes de las actuales provincias de Murcia, Jaén, Córdoba, Sevilla, Cádiz, y de las tierras al oriente del Guadalquivir. Es decirmás de las dos terceras partes de los colonos no habían atravesado más de 200 kilómetros. La única región alejada con una representación considerable era Guadalajara-Cuenca”
“M. Barrios ha constatado que de los 43 colonos del municipio de Atarfe (la Vega
de Granada) el 76% eran andaluces, la mayoría de los cuales procedía fundamentalmente de Jaén y, después, de Córdoba.14 F. Martín Ruiz estima que en el partido de Marbella los andaluces eran el 79% (la mayoría, procedentes de Málaga, Sevilla y Córdoba). Del resto de regiones la única con una representación superior al 10% era Extremadura.. En 1574, en el obispado de Málaga (selección de 2.120 vecinos de un universo de 9.000 personas) los andaluces constituían el 82,45%, a los que seguían los extremeños, en un 3,91%”
These two extract explains the Andalusian accent in the kingdom of Granada.
What I back is the genetic data and related maps. That is correct, as far as I can tell.
ReplyDeleteHistorical interpretations are arguable but the genetic data has to be accepted for what it is (or challenged at fundamental levels and with due knowledge).
Now for your PDF, it just claims that the expulsion projects failed once and again until "miraculously" in 1609 it succeeded. C'mon!
"El origen de 8.535 familias está registrado"...
That's 40,000 people at the most.
And you admit that all them arrived from nearby provinces (what is less important in terms of population rearrangements because it tends to happen naturally along the centuries).
Essentially you are wasting my time.
1. "Historical interpretations are arguable but the genetic data has to be accepted for what it is (or challenged at fundamental levels and with due knowledge)".
ReplyDeleteThere are profesional historians which has study this issue parrish by parrish, Libros de Apeo etc... when data were avalaible. The conclusion is that expulsion was succesfull. This is not to say that 100% of Moriscos were expulsed, but most of them were.
Some cases where it wasn´t are well documented and studied as well.
"That's 40,000 people at the most".
You don´t even bore to read the documents I´m linking.
In fact they talk about "12.250 familias, en un total de 47.657 personas" in 1576 of which of 8.535we know the origins. Around 47.000 in year 1976. That´s not all repoblación. There were newcomers in precedent and later years.
"And you admit that all them arrived from nearby provinces (what is less important in terms of population rearrangements because it tends to happen naturally along the centuries)".
Nearby provinces that had been repoepled centuries before since its reconquest, again mostly with peoples from the north. Again pls. inform you about spanish history before speculating about distribution of present genetic data. If you need help, pls ask me.
2. The conclusion is that there are undisputable proofs against what you asserted and that massive replacement has happened in the Iberian Peninsula in modern times, it happened before...
And it is still happening. For instance, regarding the basque surnames issue that you commented before, some data from this paper "La mezcla del pueblo vasco" (you can find PDF easily googling this title). A summary here:
http://www.elpais.com/articulo/espana/PAIS_VASCO/estan/vascos/elpepiesp/19990301elpepinac_15/Tes
In 1991 there were 4.378.122 persons with basque surname and aged >16 years (data from spanish census and nomenclator of basque surnames). Of those, 3.550.416 live outside basque country.
There are many other interesting statistics data data in this paper about peoples now living in basque country for those interested in interpreting correctly population genetics. And that´s only for second half of XX century.
I know about historians working with primitive statistics. But there is not so much to consider in many cases: the statistics are very fragmentary and the exceptional case is usually hyped.
ReplyDelete"You don´t even bore to read the documents I´m linking".
I did read the substance, mind you. Just that you won't expect me to read 28 pages in full, do you? Much less when more than 90% of them are almost irrelevant to our debate. Be a hypocrite and say "yes".
"... en un total de 47.657 personas"... is not substantially different of what I estimated based on the "8.535 [that] we know the origins", which was the only figure I was able to find.
You are anyhow saying that 47,000 people migrated inside Andalusia, it seems.
[Btw a search does not find the phrase "47.657 personas" or any other fragment of your quote - guess I'm looking in the wrong paper: "LOS MORISCOS DEL REINO DE GRANADA: SU EXPULSIÓN Y EL CONSEJO DE POBLACIÓN" - but you have not provided so many links].
[And btw the paper is published by a faculty of Law, not History].
"There were newcomers in precedent and later years".
No clear data in your link about that. Basically it talks of the institutions designed to repopulate, which lasted some 3 years in full (plus two decades of decadence).
"Nearby provinces that had been repoepled centuries before"...
False!
"If you need help, pls ask me".
I may make use of "help" (informative links) but you don't seem able to provide it: you think you know more than you actually do and that is bad.
And regarding point 2. We the Basque People could not care less what Spaniards think of who we are: we know better than that. The only thing we care is that they respect our right to decide in democracy.
Whatever the case modern industrial colonizations have no comparison with what happened in the past. Never something so big as the 20th century colonization, largely under military dictatorships, happened. Still the figures of that article are exaggerated and that is because Romance surnames with local roots (for example most surnames of Araba) are not even considered: it is a shallow ideological paper.
They claim that there is 12% of Basque surnames in Almería. That is simply ridiculous!
And that's what happens with mediocre and tendentious surname studies. I was just pointed to the FTDNA Basque project for the same reason: people is claiming that surnames like Garza are "Basque", not to mention Bulgaria, Le Blanc, López, Segura, etc. Almost half of all those imagined "Basque" surnames are not.
Of course there's been massive immigration and there is now from outside Europe as well. But the key of our identity is not blood (that's fine for geneticists of the racialists like Arana) but language and ethnic pride. The "German" theory of the nation says that nations are because of blood and language, the "French" theory says they are because of the will of the people. The Basque reality is both, a mix of both, but specially the will of the people.
And in democracy the People decides.
Now get lost.
Maju, again my last comment has been lost. Pls check. Thnks.
ReplyDeletesolved^^
ReplyDelete1. Thanks.
ReplyDelete2. I have implemented my Valencia replacement model in Mathematica. I think it is fair to share before leaving. If you have this program I can send it to you in order you play with it. In case not pls find details bellow:
a=number of new inmigrants christians from Aragon and Catalonia=20000.
b=idem of muslims=180000
c=idem of mozarabs=20000
t=years=350
P(t0)=Population at time of reconquest 1250 = a+b+c = 220000. You can play with this figure as you like as well as with the distribution per ethnicity, but a must always be 10% of b+c, and you must take into account that c is a minority.
P(T)=Population at time of expulsion, 1600=
ax(r1^t)+bx(r2^t)-150000+bxr3^t+I=450000
with 0<r1<0,1% christian population rate of growth; 0<r2<0,05% muslim population rate of growth;0<r3<0,15% mozarab population rate of growth. I assume that muslim rate of growth is lower because the rate of conversion into mozarabs, which absorb this dicrease.
I choose this rates ranges based on historical data. From this paper
http://adsri.anu.edu.au/pubs/BAPS/BAPSChap3.pdf.: "Up to the 17th century, population growth was slow and unsteady. In some years the population actually decreased because of wars, epidemics, malnutrition, and famine. The plague, a fever affecting rats but which can spread to humans, was an example of a major killer. In a series of pandemics (epidemics spreading over a wide area) called the Black Death, the plague killed perhaps one-third of Europe's population between 1347 and 1349”
You can play with them with the constraint that r2+r3=2r1 and historical plausibility.
I is inmigration. For simplifying I assume 0 emigration (this is an advantage for you). You can play with the figure 450000 (but be reasonable).
With above data the probability to find someone of mozarab or muslim descent,that is of preconquest stock in 1600 is 33%, which in fact is much more higher than I expected before calculations), but very far from your range 85%-100%range.You won´t get it with reasonable playing.
(cont.)
3. Two clarifications before leaving:
ReplyDeletea)I said that your political site is funny. The issues you talk about are usually very serious; but funny are your twisted interpretations.
b) Based on historical research, I said that Granada expulsion was succesfull. Of course, nothing to be proud about this success...
And a correction in above model.
ReplyDeleteWhere I say 450000 it is 300000.
Models are not reality.
ReplyDeleteI do not even think most Valencians were Muslims at the time of Aragonese capture: most Andalusis were Christians (Mozarabic) because, excepting the last few decades of Almoravid and Almohad "talibanism" (from where the Moorish intolerance legends arise) the attitude of the Muslim states of Iberia was very much tolerant (at least towards Christians and Jews, not towards Pagans obviously).
In 500 years some converted but many did not. This is particularly true in the Kingdom of Murcia, created upon conquest as a Christian vassal state.
So your 180,000 coverts vs 20,000 Mozarabs is just a ridiculous claim. Much more likely that relations were even. Even today (1300 years after conquest!) in Egypt, Palestine, Syria, etc. Christians are c. 10% (plus another 10% of Jews in Palestine before Zionist immigration), 30-40% in Lebanon... It makes no sense whatsoever that there was the same conversion success (or even effort: early Caliphs rather delayed conversion because of tax issues) in 500 years than in 1700.
At most the situation would have been as in the Ottoman Balcans in the 19th century, with most people being Christian, even if there were some populations (Bosniaks, Albanians, some "Turks") who were Muslim. In the Balcans there were no religious cleansings before the 1990s and yet Muslims were never majority (with some localized exceptions: Albanians and recycled Bogomils). In Iberia most early Muslims were surely Goths who followed Arius' monophysite version of Christianity and sought that way to secure their lands and power, others must have followed but there's no evidence of any mass conversions and probably most remained Christian all the time.
If we can so radically disagree on the very basic assumptions, imagine then how can we disagree about your modeling.
"Models are not reality".
ReplyDeleteBut much closer to it than especulation or fantasy.
Speaking about fantasy, you said:
"So your 180,000 coverts vs 20,000 Mozarabs" is a key data that must be proved.
Good point. Thanks to my, according to you useless model, now you know that the proportion of mozarabs in pre-conquest Valencia Kingdom is the unique parameter which can save your 85%-100%continuity theory. Some historical data to back your point or, as usual, just guess, speculation and fantasy ?
By the way in Toledo, the spanish city where mozarabs were more prominent, there are many families that claim descent from pre-toledo conquest (1086) mozarabs. It would be nice a Y-chromosome within this group. From this wikipedia article:
http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moz%C3%A1rabe
"Ilustre y Antiquísima Hermandad de Caballeros Mozárabes de Nuestra Señora de la Esperanza de San Lucas de la Imperial Ciudad de Toledo. Estos caballeros son descendientes directos de aquellos cristianos que vivieron bajo dominación musulmana en la ciudad de Toledo y que ayudaron al Rey Alfonso VI a conquistar la ciudad. Alfonso VI Reconoció la cristiandad de estos caballeros otorgándoles el "Fuero Mozarabus" y concediéndoles en el año 1085 el privilegio, entre otros, de poder ser armados caballeros, que en ese tiempo era concederles ha hidalguía, pues únicamente los nobles tenían acceso al estamento militar".
See also: http://docelinajes.blogspot.com/2011/07/ilustre-comunidad-mozarabe-de-toledo.html
Models are speculations. I can build a zillion different models and the results will be different, even radically different, depending on which parameters I decide to use, etc.
ReplyDeleteGenetic surveys' data are facts instead. And these facts deny your repopulation model, no matter how you look at it. I strongly suggest you to stop posting until you have understood the genetic data and meditated for some time about it.
Maju isn´t this a scientific blog ?
ReplyDeleteEnough for the defensive blablabla. Arguments and evidences.
--about mozarabs in Toledo. From a recent book "La era mozarabe" from Diego Adrian Olstein (2006), after having analised the antroponimics of 100% avalaible documents he concludes (under antroponimics hypothesis favourable to higher proportion of mozarabs) that the proportion of mozarabs / north-inmigrants during the period 1086-1300 was bellow 30%/70%. After 1300the mozarab religious and cultural identity diluted into castillan identity. Can we extrapolate this proportion to Valencia ?
--You said that it is false that the west andalusia (Guadalquivir valley) population was replaced.
From M.A.Ladero Quesada (http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miguel_%C3%81ngel_Ladero_Quesada):
"Las condiciones de conquista y capitulación de las tierras del valle del Guadalquivir así cómo la evolución inmediata permitieron la permanencia de muchos musulmanes en zonas rurales, pero la gran revuelta múdejar de 1264-1265, su castigo y la masiva emigración a Granada acabaron con aquella situación bruscamente".
--about Granada, from the book Linajes Granadinos, from Enrique Soria Mesa(http://historiasocialmoderna.com/profesor_enrique_soria): "El reino de Granada fue...la zona más abierta al ascenso social de toda España entre los sXVI y XVIII...Su carácter de tierra de conquista, la lógica ausencia de nobleza de sangre, su situación periférica y alejada del núcleo de poder castellano,la existencia de continuas oleadas inmigradoras, las famosas repoblaciones de los que casi todos los naturales de estas provincias descendemos...".
Please note that his researcher knows perfectly the morisco issue: http://identidadandaluza.wordpress.com/2010/11/25/linajes-ocultos-de-moriscos-que-se-quedaron-en-andalucia/
... "isn´t this a scientific blog ?"
ReplyDeleteIt wants to be. I wouldn't mind some help from readers, though. *wink*
"Arguments and evidences".
Mind you to look at the genetic evidence: something you have avoided all the time - and is 97 comments already!
On the rest I think that the Andalusi population remained in most places and that Castile, etc. had not demographic might to replace them, nor the military-political power to effectively conduct any genocide beyond the anecdote. Anecdote that you (and some Spanish ideologues pretending to be historians) like to aggrandize.
My argument is genetics. Specially in the Valencian case.
Enough (you already announced your leave weeks ago, yet you insist circularly).
To end this Mozarabs / Moriscos issue.
ReplyDelete1. First some spanish population (general / moriscos) at the end of the XVI century figures (based on the 1591 census and extracted from the well known “franquista” (according to Maju standars of judgement) historian Bartolome Benassar (http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartolom%C3%A9_Bennassar) book "La España del siglo de oro".
--Castile (6.600.000 general / 90.000both figures including those of Andalusia, Granada and Murcia),
--Basque Country (200.000 / included in kingdom of castille figure),
--Kingdom of Navarre (150.000 / ¿?),
--Kingdom of Aragon (350.000 / 60.818),
Cataluña (370.000 / 3.716)
Kingdom of Valencia (450.000 / 117.464).
Both figures not far to the ones I assumed in the model.
2. From this Sanchis link http://salvadorjafer.net/xarqand/historia/Andalus_Sanchis_Arabs-mossarabs.htm
“El nucli mossàrab valencià era aleshores encara important, i es tenen notícies del bisbe mossàrab de València que en 1087 pelegrinava a Terra Santa(5).
Però en 1102 els almoràvits nord-africans reconquistaren València per a l'Islam i hi hagué una emigració col·lectiva dels mossàrabs valencians a Castella(6), si bé no s'arribà encara a extingir el nucli mossàrab de València”
Com que els fanàtics almoràvits els perseguien durament, els desemparats mossàrabs demanaren al rei d'Aragó que els alliberàs... retornà Alfons I a Aragó, acompanyat de 10.000 famílies mossàrabs, part important de les quals eren valencianes".
"Després de les dues emigracions col·lectives, la del 1102 i la del 1126, la quantitat de cristians de la València musulmana hauria de ser per força molt reduïda"
"No s'extingí, tanmateix, la mossarabia valenciana. Consta documentalment que encara sobrevivia la vespra de la Conquista. Jaume I, el 19 de març de 1232, a Montsó estant, féu donació al monestir aragonés de Sant Victorià d'Assán (Sobrarbe) del poblat o església de Sant Vicent que hi havia a València ("locum sive ecclesia vocatur et dicitur Sanctus Vicentius")(13).
Jaume I no enderrocà res ni res desféu, sinó que fou l'ordenador del conjunt valencià: "en aquest complex els elements constituents eren: el mossara-bisme primerament, l'allau catalano-aragonés a continuació, els moros que quedaren amb els cristians després, augmentat el total amb l'addició de l'hebraic"(14).
"La font principal, però, per a l'estudi del mossàrab valencià és el Llibre del Repartiment del Regne de València...", .
There are two researcher which has studied intensivelly these very informative repartimiento books
http://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/libro?codigo=273064, Cabanes Ferrer Navarro and Cabanes Pecourt, but with the information at hand I´m unable to estimate a figure of the number of mossarabs in K.Valencia.
(cont.)
Maju, some individuals and peoples of the past did some things. As a result of their actions they let some signals, both biological (bones studied by anthropologists, genes studied by population geneticists) or cultural (artifacts, studied by archeology, languages studied by linguistic cristallized in documents, studied by history). All these signals, included historical ones, are usually by products, i.e. non intentional, not produced for the posterity. Although some historical sources are posterity aware (chronicles) and therefore could have been manipulated in the past, history does not equal chronicles. And even chronicles admit scientific (not ideologized) study. For those of us interested in knowing the identities and actions of the peoples of the past,why limit the pieces of information to genetics, taking into account that genetics does not solve, by far, the problems ?.
ReplyDelete"Kingdom of Valencia (450.000 / 117.464)".
ReplyDeleteSo there were some 330,000 non-Moriscos ("old Christians"), c. 75% of all.
"Both figures not far to the ones I assumed in the model".
Quite far. You claimed 200,000 inhabitants for Valencia when they are 450,000 (close to my late estimate of 500,000), you said that 90% were Muslims (eventually Moriscos after forced conversion), etc. Even if all Moriscos would have been expelled (most unlikely) 75% of all Valencians would have remained.
But I do appreciate those figures because they are very much clarifying and supportive of my position of demographic continuity (more or less) through the ages.
I can say again that effectively a random (locally rooted) Valencian of today is at least largely, mostly, descendant from the Iberians of before Rome.
Your last comment proves that either you are not reading my comments / model either my explanations are not good either your logical and mathematical abilities are much worst than I thought. Had I knonw this I wouldn´t had waste my time explaining my model to you.
ReplyDeletePls. reread and update your mind to the real data.
ciao !
p.s. A gist before leaving definitively: http://www.archeolandes.com/documents/aquifer.pdf.
I think this article or whatever it is might interest you.
As for your latest link, it seems another junk piece of Romance-wannabe-Celtic imperialist propaganda. For instance already in the second column of the first page, it makes a huge but quite empty effort to "demonstrate" that Aquitani were Celts, stating that the tribe of the Tarbelli derives its name from "Celt" (proto-Celtic) *tarvos (bull).
ReplyDeleteI can of course think of other etymologies form Basque, like Adar Bel (black horn) or whatever or Adarbe (under the horn), which may have referred to a mountain.
But whatever the case, one thing is clear: the Tarbelli spoke Basque (ancient Basque = Aquitanian).
Other Basque names are Belendi (obviously from bela=raven), from which > Pelendones, etc.
It always astonish me the ideological Celticism of the neo-Roman scholars that seek that way somehow to deny the pre-Celtic roots which are not just of Basques and Iberians but also theirs. I mean: can you guys come to term with the fact that you are as Indoeuropean by blood as, say, Jamaicans are?
What the fuck?!
Judging without reading, again.
ReplyDeleteEasy, Maju: I found this paper by accident and thought it might of interest to you. When calling it a gift I was not beeing ironic. Didn´t expect this reaction, just a thanks...
Of course not that I´m interested in starting now a debate about basques. I had enough with these moriscos and mossarabs.
"But whatever the case, one thing is clear: the Tarbelli spoke Basque (ancient Basque = Aquitanian)."
ReplyDeleteAny evidence ?
In any case your overreaction made me study this issue more deeply and taking into account the following facts:
a) Today´s genetic evidence (Y-Chromosome, mt-DNA, autosomal-DNA) doea not show any difference within basques and spanish/frenchs.
b) Onomastics south of pyrenees does not show almost any undisputed trace of basque/aquitanian (source: Francisco Villar). The contrary is truth: indo-european is pervasive in toponims, anthroponims and teonims.
c) Most epigraphy with evidence of basque-like language (let´s call it Aquitanian) is in the Haute-Garone region, north of the pirenees and dated from I century a.c.
d) Euskera is probably (it is fair to recognize that not everybody agrees with this ethymology) the language of the Auski peoples.
e) Reconstruction of proto-basque language by Michelena points to a recent origin (see Gorrochategui).
f) later dialectization points also to a recent origin of Basque in this pirenaic area.
g) The Ausci and other possibly euskera peoples were surrounded by celts peoples.
h) Some of these celt peoples were the same that composed the Galatans
(see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galatia#Celtic_Galatia). Concretelly the Tectosages:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tectosages. See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Volcae_Arecomisci_and_Tectosages_(migrations).svg
i) The boois (of boheme origin) had were newcomers in Aquitania also.
j) they were integrated without problems in the novempopulania province.
I think that the most parsimonious and less speculative conclusion is that the Auski (also called basques) were recent new comers in Aquitania, concretelly from Asia Minor, and probably allies of celts. Further research might confirm or falsify this conclusion.
p.s. my interest in basques comes from the fact that I have several basque surnames (some from the north of Navarra).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aquitanian_language
ReplyDeletehttp://forwhattheywereweare.blogspot.com/2010/11/interview-with-e-aznar-basque-was.html
And of course the Iruña-Veleia grffiti, which can only be true.
Check also:
http://leherensuge.blogspot.com/search/label/Basque%20language
http://forwhattheywereweare.blogspot.com/search/label/Basque%20language
That Francisco Villar guy is a fluent Basque speaker or rather the typical Indoeuropeanist smartass?
You know no shit but you are the usual arrogant Spanish Nationalist whom I hate so deeply that the least I could do is to puke on you.
Get lost, get lost, get lost! I do not want to even talk with Spanish Nationalist scum. And that's why I write in English.
Get lost, scum.
Before answering to your later comment, to the arguments in my above comment I would like to add:
ReplyDeletea) the very first historical narratives for Aquitania are Posidonios (used by the later Strabon) and Julio Cesar;
b) Under Pompee both aquitaine and Asia minor where repeopled;
c) Besides Tectosages, Boiates where also present both in Aquitaine and Galatia.
(cont.)
Maju, like it or not until now hard facts (genetic, archeologic, lingüistic, and historical) are more favourable to late antiquity (not earlier) euskera presence, both in Aquitania and Spain. At present evidence of euskera in Aquitaine dates as much...who knows...from II century b.c onwards ? And in Spain Vasconización Tardía hypothesis (http://trifinium.wordpress.com/2010/01/08/los-diez-argumentos-de-la-vasconizacion-tardia/)explains better all undisputed data. In this link they quote a well known Trask (died 2004) passage, from his book “History of Basque” (1997):
ReplyDelete“Most specialists are satisfied that the Basque language was introduced into much of the Basque Country in post-Roman times, most likely during the Visigothic period.
[...] Even today, there is a debate about the likely frontiers of Aquitanian south of the Pyrenees. Some scholars would like to see the city of Calagurris in the Ebro valley, described by Roman sources as lying within the territory of the Vascones, as Basque-speaking, and some would place Basque-speakers in much of modern Aragon. Here I note that the evidence for such views is sparse in the extreme, and most specialists, I think, would be reluctant to posit Basque speech so far south and east.
[...] South of the Pyrenees, the language not only survived but apparently spread into the entire territory of the modern Basque Country, and, some time after the fourth century, probably earlier rather than later, Basque-speakers expanded into the Rioja and Burgos to the southwest".
This Trask quote answers almost all the arguments in your links, which points either to highly disputed data (Iruña Veleia), either to ethymological analysis of undated onomastics (what´s the scientific value doubtfull ethimologies of undated onomastics ?). Even if the information in your links was valid I´ve not seeing in them any evidence agaisnt Basque origin in Asia minor, installation in Aquitania in III b.c. and then scattering.
One of the papers in your links is interesting “Actualización en onomástica vasco-aquitana” since it includes new data after 1997/2004, posible counterarguments against Trask´s passage.
ReplyDeleteBut besides the list of toponims beeing undated, the provinces they quote coincides exactly with middle-ages Kingdom of Navarre frontier in expansion (“ya hay testimonios peninsulares en Álava, Guipúzcoa, Vizcaya, Navarra, Huesca, Zaragoza, La Rioja y Soria anteriores a la antigüedad tardía”). To be sincere only this coincidence is highly suspect. In any case could you provide us with concrete datation of these toponims ?
In this paper they speak about Lugdunum Convenarum, which is a highly interesting and relevant place. See http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lugdunum_Convenarum, and http://dspace.uah.es/dspace/bitstream/handle/10017/5615/Las%20Ciudades%20Fundadas%20por%20Pompeyo%20Magno%20en%20Occidente.%20Pompaelo,%20Lugdunum%20Convenarum%20y%20Gerunda.pdf?sequence=1 and the paper I linked several comments above (the one that caused your first overreaction).
Finally, you claim to be an expert in archeology (I suppose you include Navarra area). It seems Pamplona area has attested continuous archeology since bronce age. Could you please illustrate us about this ? Some good papers and/or links ? I have some...just to check if we are drinking from the same sources.
Come on, that's ridiculous. One can have a sane debate about some fringes of modern-day Western Basque lands where an IE language may have been spoken by the elite (placenames or river names indeed seem to be linked to Celtic such as the famous Deva river) but we very well know that only the elite let written testimonies of its presence somewhere. But that's all : ancient epigraphy is clear, people with ancient Basco-Aquitanian surnames inhabited modern-day Rioja and most of North Aragon, maybe as far as Catalonia (Andorra being a clear case).
ReplyDeleteDenying the autochtonous character of the Basque language in ancient Aquitania is even more ridiculous : what more than hundreds of Basque personal names found in ancient Aquitania is needed so that people can accept it ? As for the Boii, it's a 19th century forgery : the ancient people inhabiting the Bay of Arcachon (a probable Basque placename in itself) were named "Boiates" with the Latin suffix -ates given to the many Aquitanian tribes. They once were fused with their neighbours the Vasates (from Basque baso "forest") and were known as the Basaboiates. This area is still one of Gascony's densest place in Basque placenames. Some scholars in the 19th century invented that these Boiates were linked to the Central European Boii and the legend got to survive just out of precarious paronymy.
The only known newcomers in Aquitania were the Bituriges Vivisci who paid a tribute to run a port on the Gironde estuary in former "Garumnian" territories (the Garumni being the autochtonous Aquitanian inhabitants of Bordelais alongside the Medulli in Médoc). Strabon is quite clear about that.
The Ausci were not surrounded by Celtic people : in the West were the Aturenses (ethnic Aquitanians, capital : Atura) and the Elusates (ethnic Aquitanians, capital : Elusa), in the South were the Bigorri (ethnic Aquitanians, capital : Bigorra) and the Convenae (ethnic Aquitanians, capital : Lugdunum, a late Roman creation), in the North were the Lactorates (ethnic Aquitanians, capital : Lactora, ultimately annexed by the Celtic Nitiobriges from Aginnum undeed), in the East were probably Celtic Tectosagian lands though we know this area was also known to be people by the Tolosates, probably the autochtonous inhabitants of Tolosa before the Celtic conquest of their oppidum).
As for genetics, it is now proved that the Basques and their immediate neighbours such as Gascon or Cantabrian people were less subject to Neolithic influence hence their relative originality within the general European context. The interesting debate IMO is whether or not that Vasconic universe contributed to the peopling of Europe or if it already was isolated in the Ice Age, demographically dominated by areas such as Périgord.
In front of such evidence (the conformity of genetics, history and linguistics), forging theories about the Basque language being a late export by Asian migrants in the mountainous fringes of Western Europe is pure fantasy, one induced by the hatred of everything Basque.
Ditto. Thanks Heraus. :)
ReplyDeleteI would add that Trask is fine for non-Basques who do not have a deep interest in Basque matters but he is at best introductory, not the whole truth (in fact his works contain a lot of quite obvious errors).
ReplyDeleteWhat is clear is that, no having any sort of prestige nor being official in any court nor bishopric, Basque language would have got a very hard time expanding, excepted maybe in the case of massive repopulations, which are most unlikely to have happened anywhere. While the (late but very real) Basque Bagauda surely helped the survival of Basque language, Basque surely never expanded in historical times. So if Basque is documented in Huesca in the 13th century, it is because it was spoken there before Romans arrived, if it is documented in Upper La Rioja, it is because it was spoken there since immemorial times, etc.
We could always consider very localized exceptions where genocide and colonization would have made the trick but these can't explain anything larger than a valley or town.
"the provinces they quote coincides exactly with middle-ages Kingdom of Navarre frontier in expansion"
The Kingdom of Navarre never really expanded: a characteristic of Basque states, notably Pamplona/Navarre (but also Vasconia before it), is that they almost never expanded. Navarre never controlled Huesca, btw. It did control Jaca (original Aragon County) and Cinco Villas (Zaragoza province) but never Huesca.
Similarly it never held Soria either. Even if Garray (a clear Basque toponym) was once attributed by treaty to Navarre, it was never occupied de facto.
You can anyhow find Basque toponimy, in my opinion (Heraus may disagree), in much of the Iberian peninsula, mainland Europe and even Italy. This surely indicates a widespread "Vasconic" of Basque-like language family, of which Basque is the only survivor (Iberian, Ligurian probably, would have been others in the past). The decline of this language family would have began earlier, with the Indoeuropean invasions of the late Bronze Age (Urnfields and such), but Romanization was almost definitive.
Would not have been for the late Roman feudalization and the subsequent Bagaudae, there would be surely no Basque at all today.
In any case it has NOT expanded but contracted in all fronts.
Heraus, thanks for joining the discussion. It seems it is more civilized now.
ReplyDeleteYou said: "In front of such evidence (the conformity of genetics, history and linguistics), forging theories about the Basque language being a late export by Asian migrants in the mountainous fringes of Western Europe is pure fantasy, one induced by the hatred of everything Basque"
No hate for anything Basque from my side, on the contrary. It is just that I do not see any solid evidence of Paleolithic or Neolithic basque descent in the Genetic, Linguistic, archeological or historical fronts.
1. Regarding the lack of basque onomastics south of the pyrenees with well known exceptions (pompelo, oiasso) pls read last chapter in Francisco Villar book: "Vascos, Celtas e Indoeuropeos", from 2005. He analyse all Iberia toponimics present in ancient preroman or early roman sources (Polibius, Posidonius, JC, Estrabón...) and gives them indoeuropean ethimology. You can not disagree with toponimics selection; you can disagree with ethimologies. I´ve not seen nothing published since then to refute its thesis. Read it pls before arguing.
2."As for the Boii, it's a 19th century forgery Booi is not forgery" and "The Ausci were not surrounded by Celtic people". The paper I have linked several comments above is from a French respected scholar (University of Pau), was wroten later than 2004You can see there recent arguments for the celtisation of aquitaine. Read it pls before arguing. It is truth that some of the tribes you cite could be aquitanian-esulaldunes but for most it is unclear (not definite evidence; it could be euskera or celt). There is no doubt that tectosages (from which Tolosa name comes) were celts.
Even if all the ones you cite were euskera, the problem is since when were these tribes in Aquitania ? Any evidence from your side of paleolithis or neolithic descent ? If they first euskalduns arrived in Aquitaine early III century before christ as I claim, it is enough time for generate houndreds and thousands of euskera epigraphics and even toponimics.
3. As for genetic evidencepls inform about the sources that suppor your claim.
4. Any counter argument against the fact that proto-basque and later dialectization could not be make basque older than III B.C.
(cont.)
Vadconización tardía is a serious well studied hypothesis.
ReplyDeleteMaju,
Trask is considered one of the fathers of bascologism, even by basques experts such as Michelena or Gorrotxategui to cite a few..
I aknowledge you are not giving the dates of the toponimics cited in the paper uou linked.
Your vasconian toponimics everywhere in Europe probably comes from Veneman. Nobody accept them anymore.
Pls check these links:
http://oc.land.free.fr/textes.htm
and
http://oc.land.free.fr/histoire0.htm
and
http://oc.land.free.fr/histoire46.htm
From the last link:
"A la fin du IIIème ou au début du IVème siècle, face aux raids ibères ou vasques, les Romains évacuent les Pyrénées et établissent même un limes (=frontière) sur l'Adour et les Gaves (forteresse principale : Bayonne ou Lapurdum). Les gouverneurs militaires aux frontières porteront le titre de duc (ou dux, chef militaire) ou de comte (administrateur d'une cité)"..."En 395, l'Empire romain est divisé en deux (administré par Rome et Constantinople) ; c'est le début du Bas Empire.
Le diocèse de Vienne est transformé en "Diocèse des 7 provinces", dont les 2 Aquitaines (Bourges et Bordeaux) et la Novempopulana (Eauze)".
L´Adour is just the present north limit of euskera. It was probably then when aquitanians started they migration south. A second push could have been with the instalation of Visigoths in all the Garonne valley.
Regarding Euskera toponimics distribution I would need more time to give a comprehensive answer. I find not imposible that transhumant aquitanians had pastures in La Rioja / Soria (for instance valdezcaray) since antiquity. I have to check my sources about this. Also those regarding Huesca.
Villar's is just one opinion and we do not have to agree. I am of the
ReplyDeleteopinion that much of Europe, including all the Iberian Peninsula is full of Basque toponyms (for example Iliberri (new town) > Elvira ... now Granada). Of course this phenomenon happens in the Southern Basque Country and in many other places of Iberia. There are of course Romance toponyms and many whose etymology is unclear and may be even pre-Basque but definitely not Celtic in almost any single case.
For example Heraus and I debated not long ago about Kalakorikos (> Calagurris > Calahorra). It is possible that the ending in -kos is a Celtic influence (after all it was a border town and may even have got a Celtic or Cletizied elite at some point) but the main part of the word is clearly Basque: karagorri, where kara could well an old word for color (Krutwig's idea) or a term for an outcrop, and of course gorri means red (or red-to-yellow), which is obvious why if you know the site.
You mention oiartzun (Romanized as oiasso). I have no idea why Villar argues that the name is non-Basque, including the root ohian (jungle, wild forest). You mention Pompaelo, which is a Roman name. You could well have mentioned the infamous Flaviobriga, which is again a Roman foundation (and yet appears in maps as "Celtic" toponimy, the only one in the Southern Basque Country).
"tectosages (from which Tolosa name comes)".
No, Tolosa, from toles(-tu) (to bend), means "the bend" (of the river obviously). Both Tolosas are in such "bent" riverine locations. And there is no way, without delirium tremens, to make Tolosa derive from Tectosages (I think the only letter in common is the initial T).
"Trask is considered one of the fathers of bascologism"...
IDK what "bascologism" is. I know I have read in part his famous history book and it is mediocre at the best. He surely beats Sabin Arana but barely so: it is a "historiography of Batzoki", with emphasis in the anecdote and provincialist neo-Carlism. There are much better historians in the Basque Country (and notably in Navarre) nowadays. They are surely not in English but they are definitely in Spanish.
Hopefully his linguistics is better but linguistics is a slippery science. In any case, just and always his opinion. And nothing more. An opinion that should be analyzed and qualified properly in each particular item.
"... Veneman. Nobody accept them anymore".
"Nobody" is you an who else? I mean: Venemann is just now becoming somewhat known: he's not a phenomenon of the early 20th century.
In any case my acknowledgment of Basque-like toponimy all around does not come from him. It has just converged with him. Venneman publishes in either pay-per-view and/or German and I'm poor and do not speak German.
My conclusions are my own taken from travels and, if anything, I got inspiration from F. Krutwig. But mostly when you are familiar with Basque, Basque surnames, Basque toponyms... and you travel¡, you find them all over the place. Not just in Old Castile, Aragon, Gascony... but in Galicia, Portugal, Andalucia, Italy, Britain, Yugoslavia...
Of course each of them may deserve their own debate but that would be too lengthy for here. But, unlike Venneman, I see more of a pattern along the Mediterranean up to the Southern Balcans (river Ibar in Kosovo and no-doubt-related Hebros/Maritza in Thrace). So I have a tendency these days to think of Basque language not as Paleolithic but as Neolithic one.
Yet I may be misled by the sound changes introduced by Germanic "pronunciation weirdness" and Venneman may be more correct after all. If so, for him the Balcanic presence is a lesser one and therefore the language family should be pre-Neolithic.
...
...
ReplyDelete"It was probably then when aquitanians started they migration south".
Do you even read what you quote? The text you quoted says that the Romans established an [internal] limes (border defenses) at the Adur (which is in the middle of Gascony, mind you, unless you only consider the estuary), much like the one they established in Iberia near the Ebro. This indicates the nowadays somewhat known Basque Bagauda or uprising, no any migration.
Notice also that while Spanish chauvinists fantasize with a N->S migration of the Basques, French ones imagine a S->N one. Tell him, Heraus, please. XD
"I find not imposible that transhumant aquitanians had pastures in La Rioja / Soria"....
Please, do not bother coming with more "documentation". You are just wasting our time.
I think that is Pliny who mentions that the Cantabri (!) went to help their Aquitanian brethren against Caesar, because they were "relatives". That's the term that Piny uses (unless I'm mistaking him with Strabo something I do on occasion).
We have that, we have toponimy (mind you), we have funerary slabs, we have the exceptional graffiti of Iruña-Veleia, we have the preservation of the ethnonym Vascones, sing Vasco,(which may well be a Celtic term: an exonym meaning 'people of the forest' or 'marche') into the Middle Ages and today. And crucially we have zero evidence of any of all the peoples of the Cantabrian strip being "Celtic" at all. Not just Western Basques, but Cantabri, Astures or even the Artabri were surely pre-Celtic, pre-Indoeuropean. Gallaecia itself was not as Celtic as its name suggest (after all it had only been ceticized for some 5-6 centuries when the Romans arrived and in a very petty-tribal way).
What an obsession you guys have with Celts! Celts had a millennium of expansiveness and 'glory' (at first surely with other related IE peoples like Italics, Illyrians...) but they are truly a bit hyped.
You may be interested in my hypothesis of the origin of the name Celt (Keltos in the original Greek version). As you surely know Celts themselves and Romans normally called this ethnos as Gauls or Gael. Of course Keltos could be a deformation of Gael (> Kel > Keltos) but there is another intriguing possibility: Basque keldo and rel. keldar, both despective terms (miserable, petty, ruin, dirty), which have other negative related words in the dictionary beginning with kel- (so the Basque etymology may be genuine even if the ultimate root is lost). So I propose keldo > Keltos.
You must notice that Massilian (Phocaean) Greeks seem to have got a preference for non-Celts in their dealings: Massilia was founded on Ligurian lands and the founding of its main Iberian dependency, Emporion, is related to the (re-)Iberization (replacement of Urnfield culture for Iberian culture) of the NW of the peninsula c. 550 BCE. So it's very possible that the term was acquired from Vascoid peoples of Ligurian, Iberian or "true" Basque-Pyrenean phylum.
PS- Now that I think of it the etymology of kel- as negative element is probably connected at the verb ken(-du): to take from, to remove, to deprive ("quitar" in Spanish). So it's not even so mysterious within Basque internal etymo-consistency itself.
ReplyDeleteHeraus, you are possibly right regarding the ethnic Aquitanian tribes. Thanks, your coment clarified me much.
ReplyDeleteTo clarify the debate I summarize here my point / hypothesis (which of course can be wrong).
Boiates were a celtic people originating in today´s Bohemia.
Volques were a celtic people originating in Moravia (today´s Eslavonia).
We can find branches of these peoples in Balcans, Po valley in Italy (close to Etrucans), Asia Minor (2 of the 3 Galatian tribes), Central Europe (Bohemia and Moravia) and the south of Gaule (since around 250 b.c).
These Celt peoples were interested in the control of riverine comercial routes, possibly in competition with sea Cartaginean routes. Just after Romans defeated Cartagineans, started what we can call the "Volquean wars" (starting at –146, ending at 70 with Pompee or better later with Julius Caesar) in Po Valley, Asia Minor, The Provence...
In the south of Gaule Volques were present both in Rhone and Garonne valleys, and Boiis at Arcachon(la teste de Buch) and Pyrenees (), Sibuzates (siboiates) at Soule). Within these two peoples we find the euskaldun peoples (later called Basques): in the center thje Ausci (in today´s Auch) surrounded by Lectorates in the south (toda´s Lectoure); Elusates (Euze; the other Elusates=¿Pelesets? in the incense nabatean route: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elusa_(titular_see)#Ecclesiastical_history are possiblly just a phonemic coincidence) and Aturates (Aire), Bigorres (around Tarbes) and Convenes (Comminges, from Muret to Aran valley).
I have doubts about ethnicity of Bigorres (Tarbes=¿Tarabelli?) and Convenes (according Strabon these were a miscellanea and according to other sources (San Isidoro and Saint Jerome) these were newcomers from Spain, mercenaries in Sertorius army.
In short the otiginal first attested euskaldunak area was from Adour high valley to Aran Valley (Garonne high Valley) in the North, Adour valley up to Aire and from there to Agen to the west and Garonne river from agen to Toulouse to the East.
Where did these euskaldun came from and when ? That´s the problem. One possibilty is from Asia Minor as I said in previous comments, with Volques and Boiis. Another possibility is that they were descendants of paleolithic pirenaics, as you, Maju and Heraus, suggest. The evidence is there for people to judge. IMO it is more and more clear that they were new comers (illiberri).
(cont.)
@Maju: Tectosages-->Tolosates-->Tolosa (in france and Guipuzcoa, Spain, both close to river Araxes/Arrats). Another alternative is the one you propose. You might right here.
ReplyDeleteIn any case as usual you prefer to answer with crackpot unfalsifiable ethymological especulations and opinions, without reading the sources others mention.
First do not confuse IE with celtic. Villar gives either IE either celtic interpretations to all ancient toponimics south of the Pyrenees, except Oiasso that he agrees might have euskera origins, as well as Pompaelo (because of its suffix, Pompacomes from Pompee). The scientificaly honest attitude is to read Villar first (the linguistic part of this book is very interesting) and then criticize him.
Trask is not historian, he is linguist specialized in basque. His Basque history is the history of the language not of the basque peoples. Judge him by its target (linguistics).
In any case pls don´t bother finding euskera onomastics unless you can date them before IV century before Christ. Anything after this date (including Iruña veleia does not falsifie my hypothesis):
--Cantabri beeing relatives of Auski in -I century. (why not ?).
--etc...
FYI Gracurris and Celts has well stablished (undisputed) ethymologies. While I agree that ethymology is a soft sciences, in some cases arguments can be convincing enough.
Redgarding Venneman and european hydronimics, although I´m sure that you will answer that wikipedia is unreliable, I will try anyway:
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_European_hydronymy
Regarding the Adour Limes, I do not undeestand your point. Pls clarify.
"These Celt peoples were interested in the control of riverine comercial routes"...
ReplyDeleteIt's possible but the commercial interest and subsequent incipient civilization is something that Celts may have only evolved since the La Tène period. At that time, and following the patriarch of Celtic studies, Venceslas Krutas, the Celts and their incipient tribal polis (oppidae, duns, i.e. towns) became fragile and were quickly conquered by the more barbaric Germanic tribes, which only needed then to capture and destroy these cities, and with them all the Celtic economy and society. It was in reaction to this process of Germanic encroaching that Caesar intervened in Gaul, critically delaying for several centuries the Germanic expansionism.
... "according to other sources (San Isidoro and Saint Jerome)"...
Those are not "sources": they lived many centuries after the events!
"In short the otiginal first attested euskaldunak area was from Adour high valley to Aran Valley (Garonne high Valley) in the North, Adour valley up to Aire and from there to Agen to the west and Garonne river from agen to Toulouse to the East".
Not one ancient historian talks of Basques in a linguistic sense. The most we get is the occasional mention (Caesar) of Aquitani not being Celtic but "Iberian". Thanks to that we know that ALL Aquitani were not Celtic. But this side of the Bidasoa the references are much more unspecific. We know that the Cantabri were "brethren" of the Aquitani, and hence not Celtic and it is generally accepted that at least the Vascones were Basques as well. Luckily we have some archaeology to put up for that lack of historical information and this one tells us of Basque names in La Rioja and parts of Soria (confirming what toponimy already says) and of Basque texts in Araba, in the land of the Caristii or Autrigones.
So essentially at least the Cantabri, the Autrigones and Caristii, the Vascones and all the Aquitani were Basque speaking peoples. Surely there were more: Ilergetes, Varduli (how not), Astures maybe... Also there is issue on how distinct Basque and Iberian (and Ligurian) were. Some Iberian texts (notably those we can easily read because they are in Greek alphabet) appear as some form of archaic Basque.
"Where did these euskaldun came from and when?"
That's a question you need not to formulate. Because the logical answer is "from nowhere: they were all the time there". People, specially farmers, do not migrate that much, you know. They rather tend to be strongly attached to the lands they cultivate and where they and their ancestors for maybe hundreds of generations may have lived.
"One possibilty is from Asia Minor"...
Only ignorance can even think that.
Here there is no info from, specifically Asia Minor but there is from the (closely related) Caucasus: compared with French and other Europeans, Basques (FrB) show very low Caucasus component.
Here we see (again) how Basques show as the "most pure" Europeans.
So it's only ignorance and arrogance what can bring you to ask such misleading and misled questions. Genetically Basques and Gascons look totally as having been put for many millennia, since the Paleolithic. Not just them by the way (because the "Basque" component, or otherwise a distinct component of their own, is dominant in all other West Europeans.
People, for the most part, did not came from anywhere... at least not in the last many millennia. Some people came but they were minority and they had much less of an impact on the Basque Country and other isolated areas like Ireland, etc.
"Tolosates-->Tolosa".
ReplyDeleteNo: Tolosa > Tolosates. A lot of Celtic "tribes" (polities) took their names from their main cities, much as Athenians or Romans did.
"You might right here".
I am with all likelihood.
"First do not confuse IE with celtic."
All Celtic is IE, not all IE is Celtic. However in Western Europe all first IE is at least related to Celtic somehow. Celts were the vanguard of IE in the West, later replaced by Germanic and specially Latin.
"The scientificaly honest attitude is to read Villar first"...
Vale. Send me a copy of his book. I'm not going to waste my little money on his nonsense but if you send me a copy paid by you, then...
"Trask is not historian"...
Maybe but he's best known for his pop-history book on Basques.
"In any case pls don´t bother finding euskera onomastics unless you can date them before IV century before Christ. Anything after this date (including Iruña veleia does not falsifie my hypothesis)".
4th century BCE? Are you kidding me? What texts are so old? Not even Iberian ones, with very few exceptions maybe. Almost nothing in Europe is so old except Greek, Eteocretan and maybe Etruscan texts.
"FYI Gracurris and Celts has well stablished (undisputed) ethymologies".
Gracurris is a Roman name: Gascony).
So the Adur limes fits with the Ebro limes I knew of. The existence of the militarized limes is known you know why? Because of abundance of coins, which in such late period was only used to pay soldiers.
**No idea how Blogger did it but it cut much of my latest comment it was like this**:
ReplyDelete"FYI Gracurris and Celts has well stablished (undisputed) ethymologies".
Gracurris is a Roman name: Gascony).
So the Adur limes fits with the Ebro limes I knew of. The existence of the militarized limes is known you know why? Because of abundance of coins, which in such late period was only used to pay soldiers.
It did again! O.O
ReplyDeleteNew try:
... "although I´m sure that you will answer that wikipedia is unreliable, I will try anyway"...
The Old European Hydronimy is supportive of Vasconic, though I think it's UR (Basque for water) the root of DUR/TUR, maybe via ADUR (saliva, drool - but also magical flow). How UR becomes ADUR is arguable but I can think of ADI UR (listen to the water), ATE UR (water of the gate) and stuff like that. It may be just too primitive to understand anyhow.
"Regarding the Adour Limes, I do not undeestand your point".
It has been recently (last decades) known (from archaeology) that in the 5th century Romans had to establish an "internal limes" around Basque lands, where destruction of villas and such is also reported (Bagauda). This is nowadays understood as an unreported specifically Basque late episode of the Bagaudae, which is probably what preserved Basque language until fully historical times, that for us really only begin in the High Middle Ages (Roncevaux and that period of the constitution of Pamplona as Kingdom distinct from the already collapsing Duchy of Vasconia > Gascony).
So the Adur limes fits with the Ebro limes I knew of. The existence of the militarized limes is known you know why? Because of abundance of coins, which in such late period was only used to pay soldiers.
I see why: a "<" was considered HTML code. Go figure!
ReplyDeleteAlso missing:
Gracurris is a Roman name: <· Gracus. It's not Celtic but in imitation of naming style, like Flaviobriga. It's like gathering anything about the language of Russia from the toponym St. Petersburg (where burg is a Germanic suffix).
I'll try to develop my point when I'm back home with books on my side so that I can properly quote what various authors have to say. Some points though :
ReplyDelete- A must-read : ancient epigraphy in La Rioja and Soria :
http://ifc.dpz.es/recursos/publicaciones/29/54/37fernandez.pdf
- About the Celts : an acute reading of Strabo makes us realize that "Celt" was first the name given by Greeks to the autochtonous inhabitants of the surroundings of Massalia, the town they had founded. Nothing more. The inhabitants of Gaul were the Gallates. Whether the Celts of modern-day Provence felt akin to the Gallates of the whole Gaul (a Roman creation if anything) is unknown. What is sure though is that placenames in Provence do show a strong "Ligurian" substrate such as the famous ones ending in -osc/osque which are found as far North as Ardèche.
I won't deny that when Romans conquered the area, a Celtic language was spoken though as proved by the major city names, at least in Alpine valleys. Let's note that the same reasoning could be applied to Languedoc : major market towns do have Celtic names (Eboramagos for instance) but theonyms in old towns such as Narbo (a clear Iberian placename) do prove that an Iberian language was spoken in Languedoc : see the god Larrasonis. There are theories that state that actually most Celtic placenames in parts of Gaul were Roman creations : for instance Lugdunum had become a topical way to name a mount in Roman times, like Romance "Clairmont" in the Middle-Ages.
Another famous Celtic placename which is now believed to be a Roman creation is *icoranda; probably "limit". The whole of Western Europe is full of such placenames that delimitated Roman civitates : Girona in Catalonia, the Gironde estuary and the many Guirande/Guérande/Eygurande of France. Probably a Celtic-speaking elite helped the Romans forge their administrative limits which were all but that clear prior to the conquest. IMO this is what happened in Cantabria the tribe names of which indeed seem to be IE.
- In that respect, one can detect in modern-day Gers Celtic placenames in the Adour valley that hint to military implantations : the two villages named Monlezun ("Monte Lugduno" : a tautology) are part of this dense series of placenames on the border between the Ausci and the Aturenses. I don't doubt that a placename such as Flaviobriga inbetween Santander and Bilbao (Castro Urdiales ?) was a Roman creation based on Celtic roots for unknown reasons (my hypothesis being that a Celtic-speaking elite had taken advantage of Roman conquest). The generalization of the Celtic suffix -akos as -acum might be a similar phenomenon.
ReplyDelete- Pliny indeed writes that the Cantabri came to help the Aquitanians against Crassus but I cannot find the reference where he states they are "brethen". I remember having reading it but it might be from Strabo (who states that Aquitanians are more similar to Iberians than to Gauls). It is clear there were affinities between Aquitanians and the autochtonous inhabitants of the Bay of Biscay, maybe as far as west as Galicia. See this article by Galician linguist Hector Iglesias on linguistic affinities between Basque and ancient toponymy in Galicia :
http://lapurdum.revues.org/1557?lang=fr
BTW let's not forget that up to the 17th century, "Cantabrian" was one of the ethnonyms given to the Basques.
The Latin text about the conquest of Aquitania :
http://gaskonia.blogspot.com/p/gaskonia-kes-ako_22.html
- I'll add more tonight but it's indeed true that in France, official theories still allude to "Vascon" people being migrants coming from the South of the Pyrenees who would have conquered the romanized Aquitanian people, Aquitania being a Latin name meaning "land of water". But when you go into details, even when accepting there were Aquitanian tribes of ancient Basque ethnicity, you'll still find authors denying tribes such as the Consoranni were Aquitanian (for stupid reasons such as them living on the right bank of the Garonne river which is NEVER a border from the Valley of Aran to the estuary) or that originally Bordelais was Aquitanian as hinted by Strabo's own words who clearly wrote that the Bituriges were foreigners who paid a tribute to the Aquitanians for running an emporium.
In truth I'm liking quite a bit that Héctor Iglesias: he has an open mind that can see the obvious (instead of denying it on stubborn preconceptions, as so many do). Your usual Spanish/French chauvinist would deny all those obvious Basque-looking toponyms as "impossible" by default, instead Iglesias has no trouble acknowledging them.
ReplyDeleteHe's open minded enough to even point to the most far-fetched of the hypothesis: Vasco-Uralic. I'm not in principle supportive of this idea but who knows. What we cannot do is to entrench ourselves in preconceptions and not look at all possibilities.
Also I've enjoyed that Gaskonia blog page. That Gascony red-white banner with the Lady of Brassempouy's profile has any roots/popularity or is something just of that blog?
1. Before commenting on your comments (too much information!) let me finish my hypothesis.
ReplyDeleteI asked before where and when did Auski and related peoples comes from. I said from Asia Minor. But from which peoples in Asia Minor ?
I´m pleased to present you the most likely alternative: the Mushki / Meshki. (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mushki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moschia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meskheti).
Pls note the name of their most important temple: "lies the temple of Leucothea, founded by Phrixus"
Leucothea (=¿lectures?)
Mushkis were in the XIX satrapy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Districts_of_the_Achaemenid_Empire
together with Tibareni (also called Thobeles=¿Tarbelos?),Mossynoeci (osinaga), Chalybes (Etchelibes),
Macrones.
Other ancient tribes in this area includes: Sannoi, Drilae, Machelonoi (=¿etcheleni?), Heniochois (=¿Enekos?), Zudretai (=¿Zudereta?) and Lazoi.
If there is some linguistic link, it seems that they lose the initial M.
From one of this links:
"There is a special mention in the anonymous (probably post-4th century) Periplus Ponti Evcines that both the Machelones and Heniochoi were once called Ekcheireis".
In all I think there is evidence enough to learn more about ancient georgian history. As a scientist, I feel that this not yet the EUREKA! moment but close to it. (Maju, you must be happy that this is published first in your blog).
2. Also btw I´ve found several interesting sites regarding basques:
--Museo aquitano de Oiasso.
http://www.irun.org/oiasso/home.aspx?tabid=103
There you can access to some interesting publications as the one titled: "Mar exterior, el occidente atlántico en época romana". There you can find an article about the peoples in today´s basque coast (Autrigones,Caristios and Vardulos and their limit with Bacones). There you can see that even basque scholars has no doubt that these three peoples were IE.
--Blog about archeology and history of Guipuzcoa:
http://historiadeguipuzcoa.blogspot.com/
--About other iberian Tolosas:
Nisa and Tolosa in Portugal:
http://www.hoy.es/20090607/regional/nisa-alentejo-frances-20090607.html.
That one shows the perils of speculationa bout undated toponimics.
(cont.)
The most complete account of the peoples of Aquitania comes from Plinio:
ReplyDelete"Los pueblos de la Galia Aquitánica son los ambilatros, anagnutes, píctones, sántonos, pueblo libre,los bitúriges, pueblo libre, con el sobrenombre de viviscos,los aquitanos, de donde procede el nombre de la provincia y los sediboviates. Después están los cónvenas, agrupados
en una población, los begerros, los tarbelos cuatrosignanos,
los cocosates sesignanos, los venamos, los onobrisates,
los belendos, el monte Pirineo, a cuyos pies están los monesos, los oscidates montanos, los sibilates, los camponos,los bercorcates, los pimpedunos, los lasunos, los velates,los toruates, los consoranos, los auscos, los elusates,los sociates, los oscidates de la llanura, los sucases, los latusates, los basaboyates, los vaseos, los senates, y los cambolectros agesinates. Limítrofes con los píctones están los bitúriges, pueblo libre, con el sobrenombre de cubos,después los lemovices, los arvernos, pueblo libre, los velavos,también libres, y los gábales. A su vez limítrofes con
la provincia Narbonense, los rutenos, los cadurcos, los
nitióbriges y los petrócoros, separados de los tolosanos por
el río Tarne. Los mares que bañan la costa son el Océano sepptentrional hasta el Rin; entre el Rin y el Sécuana el
Océano Británico y, entre éste y el Pirineo, el Gálico.
Existen muchas islas pertenecientes a los venetos, que se llaman Venéticas, y en el golfo de Aquitania está la isla de
Uliaros (Olorón)».
Complete but messy. I hope Heraus can read it.
Maju, blogger´s comment system fails more than an exposition rifle. My previous comment has disapeared. Pls check. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteIn any case enthousiasm is cooling, due to problems in the linguistic front: those which has tried to link basque to caucasian languages are using North-caucasian and not kartvelian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kartvelian_languages and http://www.ata.org.tn/fichier_PDF/osr2011bengt.pdf). These Mushki peoples seems to belong to Kartvelian. As said I need to improve my historical knowledge of the region.
Maju:
ReplyDelete1. It is truth that germans were pressing celts at these times. But there were no germans in Iberia but there were celtiberian wars anyway. Romans liked to see oficialy themselves as pace makers (as any empire), so I guess germans could have been an excuse.
2. The problems of Isidore and Jerome as sources are not only that they are late sources (2 or 3 centuries distant was not so far at these times) but also that they are ideologized sources: isidore because he is a Goth and a chrisitan, and Jerome because he is a Christian (he seems not to be pro-franks). But from several narrative sources that speak about the same events we can induce the approximate correct version. I find interesting that in order to claim Aquitania for goths he claims that the conveni were of Vascones origin. In shorts imo Goths and Franks were the firsts to mess up history with political interests in this area...until today.
3. “Not one ancient historian talks of Basques in a linguistic sense”. I totally agree but when you say “We know that the Cantabri were "brethren" of the Aquitani, and hence not Celtic and it is generally accepted that at least the Vascones were Basques as well” I disagree.
Fristly “brethen” can be interpreted also as “hermanados” not necessarily as siblings. Secondly brethen could mean just elites (chiefs) marriages. Third, the euskaldun status of Vascones at this centuries (from II bc to III or IV ac) is unclear at least to me: I have not seen a definite evidence either to proof either to falsifie this proposition. Onomastics does not show any trace of euskera in this area, but this is not a definite proof that they did not speak euskera over there. On the other hand, about the fact that some aquitanians were Euskaldun there is no doubt. Nobody can deny this.
4. “That's a question you need not to formulate. Because the logical answer is "from nowhere: they were all the time there". I admit that this is a possibility. However the short time for proto-basque, the scarce and short time of dialectization, the fact that almost all europe was IE at these times etc...are evidences against this. Wealso know that at these times there were movements of peoples (either forced or following their will). For instance etruscans and many others.
(cont.)
5. Genetic evidence:
ReplyDeleteI knew Dienekes Caucasian last post but without update. My take on this is as follows.
First the there is consensus in the field that the population turnover has been huge since paleolithic in all world, including Europe (btw I do not buy tha fact hat aquitania was isolated in Late Antiquity). Basques share last turnover genetics (probably iron age) . Therefore they can not be of paleolithic origin.
Second, If Basques came from caucasus in III bc it was no doubt elite-like migration. Few males (tey could even be asia minor celts admixed with asian minor locals and borrowing language from them, installed in aquitania) could made the diference in linguistic terms (http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2011/09/y-chromosomelanguage-correlations.html) . Demic local growth in Aquitania peacefull roman times and expansion in Dark age turmoil times explain the rest. In short according to my hypothesis you will not find any substantial difference between new comers and the rest (NRYC, mtDNA and autosomal). Maybe the recombinant analysys which is quickly developping (http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2011/09/can-we-please-abandon-concept-of.html, see comments) might be used in next future for clarifying basque past. Of course it must be much improved since this analysis lead the authors to worng conclusions (OoA southern route)....
6. Villar. I bought the physical book years ago. It is almost 600 pages. The best I can do is to photocopy the last conclusions chapter. Or maybe scan it it and convert into pdf....let me see. In any case I insist that undated onomastics (toponimics, epgraphics etc...) is of not scientific value. First dating; second ethimological analysis.
7. Adour Limes. Ok thanks. I knew this. And my point is that it was then when euskera was pushed south of the adour. Later with dark ages turmoil these guys went south (that´s exactly the vasconización tardía hypothesis says). I suppose you have heard of the aldaieta franks.
I will answer Heraus tomorrow.
We do not even know how the tribal name Ausci relates, if at all, with the modern language-based ethnonym 'euskaldun', which means "euskara duen" (who has the 'euskara' or Basque language). It may well be a coincidence, like the also similar toponym Osca (modern Huesca) - or may be more than a coincidence, hard to say.
ReplyDeleteThe etymology of euskara itself is confuse: I favor eutsi-era (with many dictionary examples where eutsi becomes eusk- as preffix: euskarri, euskailu, etc.) Eutsi is a verb that means primarily to hold but also to persist, to perseverate. So IMO, euskara is the persistent or holding language (and way of life: era = mode, not just language).
There are other theories, admittedly like the one that makes it derive from "esku" (hand), because in the North they often say 'eskuera' instead of 'euskara'. But I'm very skeptic.
However while 'eutsi' transforms into 'eusk-' easily in composite words, it does not alone. So hardly will appear as Ausci. Notice that "eusko" is an Aranism, a nonsense neologism with no real roots, 'euskal-' (in composites) and 'euskara' (alone) being the the genuine words.
Hence I will necessarily consider feeble, ignorant, unlikely... all conjectures about Basque origins based on the tribal name Ausci.
Still relating them to the Mushki sounds totally irrational.
"Leucothea (=¿lectures?)"
Translates literally in Greek as White Goddess. No idea why it would have any importance, Mr. Wild Fantasies.
"¿Enekos?"
Crazy but Eneko (and its Scottish equivalent Angus < Oenegus) probably come from the Eastern Mediterranean, as Krutwig suggested once or twice. The connection is Eneas and the Mycenaean Greek word, of possible Eteocretan origin, "wanaka" (= king, later replaced by basileus < pazireus = lord). However it's unclear how the name arrived to the Atlantic (Etruscans?) In any case it seems totally unrelated with your Heniochois.
You are a total and quite horrible amateur in this matter of linguistics and I'd sincerely suggest that you shut up and learn. And speak again if you dare after you learn.
"Maju, you must be happy that this is published first in your blog".
Not really (what a waste!) and it's just the comment section, thank the gods!
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ReplyDelete"There you can see that even basque scholars has no doubt that these three peoples were IE".
Some of them, sure: they have been brainwashed by the Spaniards. And that's why we have all these problems acknowledging Veleia for what it is.
This is a clear case of Goebbels-style propaganda: a lie repeated a thousand times becomes a "truth". Well, not exactly, because it still lacks of any single true support. The fact, whatever the Cultural Gestapo says, is that there is not a single piece of evidence supporting that idea of Western Basque tribes being Indoeuropean (just some feeble linguistic conjectures, insincere opinions more based on ideology than objectivity).
"My previous comment has disapeared".
Auto-spam surely. You probably have a bad record. I would not be surprised that other bloggers send your comments to the spam folder without second thought (creating a negative historial for your identity). I'm just too benevolent (so this time again I will allow your comment in spite of it being TOTAL NONSENSE).
But my patience has a limit, so you better start posting things that make sense and not just weirdo ideas. Your exposition is a total nonsense where hardly anything can be salvaged.
You should also listen to what others say. We have been providing you with a host of info you are not paying due attention to. You say: "let me finish" and I say: you could have finished yesterday or a week ago. Why to leave this for later? Because you are not the straightforward type and I do not like people who do not go directly to the grain but try to manipulate the conversation by discursive tricks. Not that it does you any good, anyhow (you're a dumb trickster who kicks his own ass): you could well have not posted this last and your prestige would several notches higher.
"But there were no germans in Iberia but there were celtiberian wars anyway".
ReplyDeleteRomans intervened in Iberia against the Phoenicians, that should be clear enough. Then they consolidated their conquest. However I am unsure if Numantia was really a Celtic town, being placed as it is in the municipality of Garray, a clear Basque toponym. As we know from Greco-Roman narrations the Celtiberians were not true Celts but an amalgamation of Celts (retreating from the NE) and "Iberians" (native peoples), achieved after many struggles. They spoke Celtic however (judging from epigraphy) but their identity was obviously mixed.
Just saying...
"The problems of Isidore and Jerome as sources are not only that they are late sources (...) but also that they are ideologized sources"...
Glad that you acknowledge it. That's a point for you.
"in order to claim Aquitania for goths"...
Notice that soon after Roman conquest, Aquitaine was expanded to the Loire. Krutwig argued this was because of Basque substrate in the area between the Garonne and the Loire but, regardless, this is different and three times larger than Caesar's Aquitaine, which approximates modern Gascony (and was later known as Aquitania Tertia or Novempopulania).
In the Middle Ages it soon took the name of Vasconia, while the name Aquitaine was retained by the parts North and East of the Garonne, which were indeed under Gothic control.
"Fristly “brethen” can be interpreted also as “hermanados” not necessarily as siblings".
The term is "relatives" ("parientes" in Spanish). You can check the original Latin (or Greek) for the exact word but don't argue with my loose interpretation in English language, please. Not serious. Whatever the case, the meaning is clearly that of related peoples. And also there's no reason to think that Celts and non-Celts were "hermanados" (made brothers) in any sense, with such a clear proto-history of persistent confrontation.
Also we have absolutely no reason to think that Cantabri were Celts. It's again just a matter of weird Castile-centric ideological speculation.
"Onomastics does not show any trace of euskera in this area"...
Onomastics?! Uh? Care to provide a link with the alleged "onomastics"? I'm not knowledgeable on the matter.
"On the other hand, about the fact that some aquitanians were Euskaldun there is no doubt".
The only reason why we know "for sure" that the Aquitani were Basque speakers is because of inscriptions in votive and funerary slabs. Exactly the same reason we have in La Rioja and Soria. That and the "Iberian" reference of Caesar (but "Iberian" may be read in many other senses).
Well, there's another reason: toponimy. There's a consensus that Basque toponimy forms an oval around the Western Pyrenees, including not just Aquitaine but many other areas at both sides of the military-imposed border. Yet I'm of the opinion that restricting Basque toponimy to this arc is, to some extent at least, arbitrary and in fact we have a much wider scatter all around Western Europe.
"However the short time for proto-basque"...
We have no idea about "Proto-Basque": with only one language remaining, we cannot reconstruct any proto-language. Much less give it a glottochronological estimate.
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ReplyDelete"the scarce and short time of dialectization"...
You have to understand that dialects are parts of a dialect continuum. Borders between dialects (in any language, specially before this era of mass media) are subtle and not abrupt, there's a gradient of mutual intelligibility. This happened with German, for example: a native from Low Saxony and one from Bavaria could not understand each other but a Low German speaker and a Middle German speaker at a border area could well understand each other, of course.
Being so constricted in geography, Basque dialects could never diverge properly, even if there are some notable differences in some cases.
Also languages evolve a lot faster when they expand. I am almost certain about that. That is because of creolization: the language adopts a lot of words, idioms and even grammar elements occasionally from the acculturized substrate population. Hence Indoeuropean (a very expansive language family) must evolve a lot faster than Basque (a defensive, contracting, language).
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ReplyDelete"... the fact that almost all europe was IE at these times"...
Do you even have a theory on Indoeuropean origins? A model for their expansion? Well, in brief: IE comes from Eastern European Russia, the Samara Valley, and expanded in several bouts since c. 3500 BCE. The first bout culminated with the conquest of Central Europe and Scandinavia (Corded Ware) and proto-Basques (Artenac) also collaborated in the end of the Danubian Neolithic peoples, who had become a true nuisance (I think). A stable border was set at the Rhine (roughly) and lasted some 1100 years.
Then the Urnfield culture peoples invaded c. 1300 BCE. That's the second bout which lasted until Roman conquest (or even today if you wish). The Celtic expansion, while very popular, took place mostly only in the few centuries before Rome: c. 700 BCE in Iberia and c. 300 BCE in most of Gaul and Britain. We know the cultural process within which these Iron Age expansions happened: late Urnfield/Hallstatt in Iberia, La Tène in the mainland and Britain (and even up to Anatolia).
You need to know that if you want to have an opinion.
"We also know that at these times there were movements of peoples (either forced or following their will). For instance etruscans and many others".
Well, Etruscans and few others (Indoeuropeans mostly), I'd say. In any case neither Etruscans nor Indoeuropeans were Basque in any sense.
"I do not buy tha fact hat aquitania was isolated in Late Antiquity".
Isolated only up to a point. It was part of the pre-IE Atlantic cultural area: Megalithism, then Atlantic Bronze Age. But this area was broken when the Celts advanced on the Western Iberian coast (i.e. Portugal-plus), which was always the cultural and probably political center. What Aquitaine was isolated was towards the Indoeuropean invaders.
And again up to a point. I have already mentioned how Aquitanians and Indoeuropean converged at the Rhine in the Chalcolithic against a common foe: Danubian peoples. Later SW pre-IE peoples and Central European IEs shared the Bell Beaker phenomenon... And even after the "Celtic" invasions, there is a branch of late Urnfield with heavy Aquitanian influence in Araba, a contact zone.
But while since the Late Middle Ages, the European Atlantic has become again a trade hub, in the Iron and Roman Age it was very marginal. There was no such strong interest in the Atlantic back then and the main route in and out of Iberia (Celts, Hannibal, Romans, Goths...) was all the time by Catalonia/Languedoc.
You anyhow have to understand Basque language and culture in the context of pre-IE language(s) and culture of Western Europe, understood as West of the Rhine, the North Sea and the Alps: modern Iberia, France, Belgium, Britain and Ireland. East of the Rhine were the (Western) Indoeuropeans, notably Celts and Italics, West of the Rhine there were "Basques" (we do not know for sure in detail but very roughly that's it). C. 1250 BCE there was the first breach of this once stable situation, as Unrfield culture (proto-Celts?) advanced along the Rhône into Languedoc and Catalonia (and Italics into NE Italy). Then two more pushes (c. 700 and c. 300) and a counter-push by Basque and Iberians (c. 550 at Catalonia) and you have a mostly IE Europe but with pockets of resistance, specially in the South (Iberians, Basques, Ligurians) but probably also in remote corners of Britain (Picts), of which we know almost nothing.
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ReplyDelete"Second, If Basques came from caucasus in III bc"...
Archaeological evidence please. I refuse to discuss this without a consistent archaeological theory.
"And my point is that it was then when euskera was pushed south of the Adour".
Not necessarily. Just that the soldiers were for some years or decades placed there. You don't kill a language in few years: you need several generations.
"I suppose you have heard of the aldaieta franks".
What I have read is that it's not possible to differentiate Franks, Goths and Basques in that period on archaeological basis (all used the same cultural items, at least in burials: same armors, same Christian crosses...)
Back to Eneko/Angus/Eneas/Wanaka. The name, now I realize, must have arrived with the very clear Mycenaean Greek influences on El Argar, which was a big regional power and surely at the origin of Iberian culture and language.
ReplyDeleteHeraus.
ReplyDelete1. While it is truth that there was some well known population replacements effected by romans, if in all the roman empire civitates names comes in general from pre-roman peoples of the same area, what on earth makes you think that romans acted in a diferent way in Hispania ? They didn´t. There is no doubt in academic circles (even in nationalist academic circles) that Galicians, Asturians, Cantabrians, Autrigones, Vardules and Caristios were IE or celtic when romans came to the peninsula. Pls read the article I´ve linked from the Oiasso roman port museum. Even scholars from the UPV admit this, otherwise they will be labelled as unscientific.
The situation regarding Bascones is unclear (I´ve changed opinion several times, evidence that the evidence is not conclusive). The situation regarding aquitanians is clear: some were celtic, some were euskaldun (according to my hypothesis newcomers from asia Minor, with Volques and Boiis).
2. Regarding your two links about onomastics, both lack the same methodological problem: undated onomastics proves nothing. I knew the Fernandez link (Maju linked it before you) and I´ve read the one from Iglesias. With all due respect this paper is very flawed: most toponimics he talks about is undated or can be dated to middle ages: there was a lot of re-peopleing in the north of Spain in middle ages, effected by monasteries, kings or nobility. The Nisa / Tolosa link I´ve showed is yet another proof of this.
The correct methodology is the one followed by Villar: take ancient toponimics in ancient well-dated documents and then make the ethymological analysis. Anything diferent is unbased especualtion.
Speaking about toponimics what do you both think about rivers Araxes and Urumea (exactly same names as Araxes and Urmia lake in Caucasus and Guipuzcoa) ? .
3. The link about the latin version of Aquitanian conquest as seen by Julio Cesar is interesting: “de cinquante mille hommes fournis par l'Aquitaine et le pays des Cantabres, elle laissa à peine échapper le quart, et ne rentra au camp que bien avant dans la nuit”. Cantabres were allied to Aquitanians. During the roman empire construction many peoples allied with their neighbours. That quote might be evidence that autrigones, caristios and vardulos were considered cantabrians.
Maju,
ReplyDeleteToo many comments, too many topics. I´ll be short.
1.Linguistics:
a) The methodology for comparing languages and clasify them in the same family must be applied sistematically. Admitedly my linguistics games with caucasus tribal names were highly especulative, just impressionistic comparisons that arised while reading tribes names. Don´t take it too seriously. I knew you could use this to attack my otherwise rock solid, logically sound and external-evidence based discourse. I took my risk and the expected happened (you are too foreseeble). My bad.
In any case your counter arguments proves nothing. For instance, Leucothea could be the (greek?) name for a godess. So what ? couldn´t a tribe take the name of her godess ? Same for Eneko. Auski->Euskera was admited by everybody until Gorrotxategui proposed another theory (imo unconvincing). In any case I will not engage in unending etimological discussions and focus instead in learning more about ancient anatolia and caucasus history.
b) Protobasque: Michelena, Gorrochategui, etc...world experts in Basque won´t agree with you. Probably you don´t even know what a proto-language means.
c) Dialectization. Given enough time any suficiently far dialects becomes different languages. So constrictedin geography ? Vizcaye and Soule constricted ? Maju pls. How do you explain then that Vizcaine is more similar to Souletine than to all other dialects?.
d).Onomastics: FYI it is the science of names, which includes anthroponims, teonims, toponims... These names can appear in epigraphic, historical documents etc...Historical onomastics as any historical sciende is based on datations. Once again especulation about undated onomastics is unscientific.
(cont.)
2. History:
ReplyDeletea) Latino-Euskera epigraphics density in aquitania by far surpasses the one south of the pyrenees. Pls references and dates for the few euskera epigraphics has been found in La Rioja and Soria. I´m very interested about this. I´m sure Trask would not agree with you on this.
You say: “There's a consensus that Basque toponimy forms an oval around the Western Pyrenees” Authors, papers or blogs ?
b) Celtiberians: You say “As we know from Greco-Roman narrations the Celtiberians were not true Celts but an amalgamation of Celts (retreating from the NE) and "Iberians" (native peoples), achieved after many struggles”.
What ???? Wrong. Archeology says that celtiberians were just Celts from Iberia (source: Manuel Salinas de Frias, Los pueblos prerromanos de la península Iberica (2005) and Francisco Burillo Mozota, Los celtíberos (1998)). Read and then speak.
c)IE: you are wasting your time adopting this teaching tone. This IE origin is folk knowledge. And you are forgoting that there several competing IE origin theories (one instance, Renfrew´s). This historical problem is still wide open.
d)Aquitania / Vasconia: I don´t care for the moment about anything post-roman. While you are wrong in some of your interpretations, I´m not interested in this discussion (yet).
e) Aquitanian isolation: your discourse is quite dense here. The fact is that nobody knows for sure when the first IE peoples came to europe. As said this is an open problem. Archeology alone can not close this problem. I´ve seen explanations of many colours. I thought there is no doubt that ligurians where IE and Picts celts. What we now for sure is that during Iron Age and roman times Aquitania was not isolated. I´ve linked to several documents that proves this for roman times.
3. III century b.c. Caucasian basque origin hypothesis: you are right asking for evidence (archeological or of any other type). This hypothesis ocurred to me only several days ago. Give me a break ! I need first to study ancient history in deep in the Anatolian-Pontic-Georgian area. In any case pls do not expect archeologic evidence: if the existed (that remains to be proved) these euskera newcomers were probably very few, warriors and celtisized.
p.s. Maju, not that I dislike discuss with you, but after so many discussion I´m still asking myself in which field you are really an expert. When I scracth a little I only see unbased unscientific weird opinions.
"Probably you don´t even know what a proto-language means".
ReplyDeleteI do, do you? From Wikipedia:
"A proto-language in the tree model of historical linguistics is the common ancestor of the languages that form a language family".
And that is exactly what I said and implied. When you have a single language you cannot use the comparative method and you cannot infer a proto language. So at best with Basque you can infer the common ancestor of all modern surviving dialects of Basque, which is the Basque dialectal continuum itself at an earlier stage.
Another thing is internal reconstruction and speculating with possible ancient stages of Basque or any other language. That's fine but it is speculation and can't be reasonably proven beyond reasonable doubt. I know that there's people who live off that but there's also people who live from scams, drug dealing, armed robbing and economics. It's very questionable that it is a legitimate money-earning activity.
"Given enough time any suficiently far dialects becomes different languages".
Only if there is no (or very little) contact. Argentinean might have diverged from Castilian Spanish because of distance but thanks to modern communication methods it's rather likely that a re-convergence happens nowadays instead. In the case of Basque the dialects were all the time in mutual intense contact, so total divergence could never happen.
In fact I suspect that some of the largest differences, such as those observed with Bizkaiera and Xiberuera/Erronkariera are testimony to larger dialect/quasi-languages in the Cantabrian strip and the Pyrenean area respectively and that these have rather converged with (or at least not diverged anymore from) Central Basque since these two areas were linguistically devastated by Romance expansion.
"Onomastics: FYI it is the science of names"...
I know that. What names are you talking about? Talking about "onomastics" in vague terms is like "uh, what?"
"Latino-Euskera epigraphics density in aquitania by far surpasses the one south of the pyrenees".
It's possible. The paper mentioned by Heraus and discussed, somewhat without enough data, here only offers a very incomplete list of slab inscriptions in the La Rioja/Soria area. Unless we get a full list we can't discuss the density. Also notice that Novempopulania is quite larger than the Southern part of the historical Basque Country, like two or three times (I say because density applies to areas and La Rioja, 5000 km², is not larger than the Pyrenees Atlantiques for example: 7600 km², and this is just a small fraction of historical Aquitaine).
"Pls references and dates for the few euskera epigraphics has been found in La Rioja and Soria".
I cannot give more than Heraus has provided and the related translation of a Basque article I worked out earlier. For E. Aznar the case is clear: Basque was spoken in La Rioja long before the Romans.
There is a whole book in Spanish by him titled "El Euskara en La Rioja. Primeros testimonios", which I have not read but surely holds all the known details.
He said: "After researching these slabs and the toponymy, to say that Basque language arrived only with repopulations is to play with preconceptions".
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ReplyDelete"You say: “There's a consensus that Basque toponimy forms an oval around the Western Pyrenees” Authors, papers or blogs?"
I have never read otherwise. I don't feel the need to justify that the Earth is round either. If you make a search you may find maps like this one (based on historical polities), this one (Tovar), this one (dynamic gif), etc.
Research the matter yourself but it's commonplace.
"Archeology says that celtiberians were just Celts from Iberia"...
No! Celtiberians (Celtiberi) were a group of Celts from south of the Ebro (see for example this map) or the Spanish language article on the matter (the English language one is wrong in many aspects). All other Iberian Celts were not appealed that way but by their own tribal/ethnic names Vaccei, Lusitani, etc. At that time the peninsula was known as Hispania (Iberia is a modern name, created only after the crown of Castile-Aragon monopolized the name "Spain").
These days some ignorants (but seldom from Spain, so I'm surprised about your ignorance in this case) use "Celtiberian" as synonym of Iberian Celt, which is wrong or at least very misleading. While Celtiberian is, along with Lusitanian (?), the only attested Celtic language of Iberia, that does not mean that all Iberian Celts used it (at least the Lusitani did not - but their Celtic identity is sometimes questioned).
"This IE origin is folk knowledge".
Not at all: the Kurgan model of IE expansion is the only one solid enough to withstand serious scrutiny. It's anything but "folk knowledge". Wikipedia for example only dedicates some relevant space to this model, following their relevance criteria. There are other hypothesis but they collapse easily under scrutiny.
"This historical problem is still wide open".
Not for me: I have researched the matter enough to know that, at least for Europe (and most likely for South Asia as well) the Kurgan model is solid as a rock, while the Anatolian, Indian and "pan-spermia" hypothesis are untenable. Refrew's hypothesis for example still needs the Kurgans to bring IE to India but he posits no way how Anatolian or Balcano-Danubian farmers would have conquered Ukraine or Russia (which they did not, of course). Renfrew is a disgrace because he, having worked with Gimbutas, should have known much better.
In this blog at least the IE expansion model is Kurgan. I can explain you why but I'm not willing to have circular debates on the matter: it's as close to "rocket science" as it gets in archaeology, linguistics and general prehistory.
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ReplyDelete"The fact is that nobody knows for sure when the first IE peoples came to europe".
By modern geographical standards they were in Europe (extreme East) since we know (the research of Samara valley has only reached down to c. 5500 BCE but there are deeper layers that could tell us something more). So they never "arrived to Europe" unless you choose to use the classical concept of Europe, which ended at the Volga. In that case, there is a quite precise date: c. 3500 BCE, when the first Kurgan signs are found in the Dniepr-Don basing forming the Sredny-Stog II complex (a confuse and irregular hybrid of Kurgan and the substrate Dniepr-Don Neolithic culture, rooted in the local Epipaleolithic).
So yes I know. Playing the wildcard of confusion, throwing a Renfrew here and a pan-spermia ("Paleolithic continuity" nonsense) there will serve you for nothing. It is a crucial matter and it has to be clarified before anything else: you can't discuss Indoeuropean origins without knowing them.
Yes: you speak a language that ultimately comes from Russia, as far as we can tell, the language family of which reached Iberia not earlier of 1300 BCE.
"I thought there is no doubt that ligurians where IE and Picts celts".
There are all kind of doubts. The evidence in each case is nearly nil, excepting maybe toponimy.
But in linguistics it's too easy to be biased unless the evidence is very clear. What Krutwig sees as "garai" (Alpes Graies < Harpe (?) Garaiak: the high Alps), other sees as mystery word and nothing else, for instance. But I'd say that the Vasconic toponimy in Italy is too clear and dense to avoid the impression that Ligurians (loosely speaking) spoke a language related to Basque.
Another reason in archaeology: neither the Celt nor the Italic nor the Etruscan cultures advanced into the historical territory of the Ligures around the Western Alps. I'm less certain about the archaeology of Scotland but I know that both opinions (Celt and pre-Celt) coexist regarding Picts.
"What we now for sure is that during Iron Age and roman times Aquitania was not isolated".
Actually it was most isolated in the early Iron Age, when Celts penetrated through the Ebro valley and into Castile and Portugal, cutting the traditional relations with the rest of Iberia both by land and sea. The relations with NW France and Britain remained probably but the whole cultural and economic region hand been broken, deadly injured with the loss of Portugal.
So I guess that, after the "reconquest" of Catalonia and much of the Ebro Valley, the dominant influence on Basques became Iberian, specially as Celts then advanced on NW France and Britain since c. 300 BCE (I understand that most relations with Celts were hostile, though there may have been some exceptions, as the case of the Bituriges - hard to judge).
"Give me a break ! I need first to study ancient history in deep in the Anatolian-Pontic-Georgian area".
Take all the breaks you need. But I'd suggest that you first (or in parallel) study European prehistory.
I do possess "El Euskara en La Rioja. Primeros testimonios". IMO after reading this book, the case is closed : there is enough evidence that a Basque dialect was spoken in La Rioja, a Basque dialect the characteristics of which can be reconstructed as akin to what we know of the now extinct Alavese dialect. Ancient epigraphy is the most striking evidence one can find : AGIRSAR, ATTAS, ARANCIS, AGIRSEN, SESENCO, OANDISSEN, LESURIDANTAR, ... are all personal first names found in Roman steles in La Rioja and Soria which show similarities with Aquitanian first names.
ReplyDeleteBTW supposing that the awfully dense Basque toponymy in La Rioja is the product of undocumented massive movements in the Middle-Ages is a bit far-fetched. If anything, if such movements were intense, it just proves that these lands had always been in the cultural sphere of the Basque people for agricultural purposes maybe. Just like Aquitania actually. Eventually these lands did not escape romanization (but in the 11th century a remote valley such as Aran was still said to be inhabited by "Bascle" people)
As for dialectalization, I agree with Maju that modern Basque dialects are probably a reduced illusion of what once were large dialectal domains. The clearest case is about Souletine : when analyzing old placenames in Pyrenean Gascony, one can reconstruct what Aquitanian was like and it undoubtedly shared much with Souletine/Roncalese (for instance when it comes to accept initial t- or not to sonorize some counsonants). Let's notice that a closer look at placenames in the Landes département conversely makes us realize that a Basque dialect rather closer to Labourdin may have been spoken as previous features are not present in what remains of ancient Basque toponymy. I haven't studied the issue but I would not be surprised if Biscayan could be proved to be what remains of a greater domain that once spanned Cantabria.
About the debate about the Adour river and the border of the Basque language :
ReplyDelete- First of all, in order to properly analyze this issue, one should know that the river never is a border between Gascon and Basque as Gascon actually got to conquest villages situated on the left bank, a phenomenon one can observe as early s the 14th century with villages such as Bidache being already half-Gascon as far as placenames are concerned.
The left bank of the Adour river in former Navarrese lands benefits from detailed registers preserved in Pamplona. Unfortunately enough, there are not such documents for the right bank of the Adour river close to its estuary in the Landes département. First testimonies are relatively recent. One can only notice that almost all villages not being hagiotoponyms do have a clear Basque name albeit deformed (Orist, Biarrotte, Biaudos, Tarnos, Orx, Ondres, ...) and that Basque micro-toponyms are abundant. That hints to a "recent" replacement of the Basque language, maybe around the 13th century.
- As for the Adour river being a border at some point in History for the Basque language, I doubt it. I doubt it as the Adour river in the end of its course delimitates the Pyrenean Piedmont from the vast plain of the Landes, the latter being actually denser in Basque placenames than the hills of Béarn for instance.
As for its course in Bigorre, the Adour is just a little river which never was a border for anything.
carpetanuiq :
ReplyDelete"There is no doubt in academic circles (even in nationalist academic circles) that Galicians, Asturians, Cantabrians, Autrigones, Vardules and Caristios were IE or celtic when romans came to the peninsula."
I don't doubt that IE languages were spoken amongst these tribes, the issue here is to discuss whether or not celtization was really that deep and it's just impossible to know with few tribe names of IE origins. For instance, in Aquitania, if one had a look at the first names of Aquitanian leader (such as Adietanus, the chief of the Sotiates) or those of the inhabitants of Lugdunum Convenarum, one could build whole theories about Aquitanians being Celtic, yet we're blessed with first names from more humble people both amongst the Sotiates and the Convenae which prove the Basque character of the autochtonous inhabitants, the elite having adopte other customs, first Celtic then Latin.
"The situation regarding Bascones is unclear (I´ve changed opinion several times, evidence that the evidence is not conclusive). The situation regarding aquitanians is clear: some were celtic, some were euskaldun (according to my hypothesis newcomers from asia Minor, with Volques and Boiis). "
If there were Celtic Aquitanians then they were not Aquitanian by definition, Aquitanian being the name given to non-Celtic people of SW Gaul.
As for them being newcomers, you'll have to explain why their modern descendants do show classical West European haplogroups and amongst Europeans are those who exihit the most little affinity with West Asians.
"The correct methodology is the one followed by Villar: take ancient toponimics in ancient well-dated documents and then make the ethymological analysis. Anything diferent is unbased especualtion."
AGIRSAR, ATTAS, ARANCIS, AGIRSEN, SESENCO, OANDISSEN, LESURIDANTAR, ... are all ancient Riojano first names. In the East of modern Rioja and around Tarazona, were Vasconian cities named Ilurci (then renamed as Graccurri), Calagorri, Ergavia, Araceli, Bendian, ... In Beronian lands were Varea/Uara which may be IE indeed, Bibilium, Libia and Vergegio (modern Berceo). Vergegio can be analyzed thanks to Celtic but after all, one could very well believe that it is linked with Basque (h)egio "zone" found in Alavese Basque : see Aznar's book for the remainder of the demonstration.
"During the roman empire construction many peoples allied with their neighbours. That quote might be evidence that autrigones, caristios and vardulos were considered cantabrians. "
When you ally with someone, it's best to at least be buddies. If family, that's even greater. If anything, that Cantabrians and Aquitanians allied against the Romans prove they shared much more than being neighbours. The Aquitanians did not side with the Gauls when they were invaded by Caesar.
"I don't doubt that IE languages were spoken amongst these tribes"...
ReplyDeleteI do. Of course we're not talkin of the occasional bilingual individual, or at the border strip, but large sectors of the populace. I understand that in the mid-run people (specially in times without schools or TV) speak this or that and that bilingualism is exceptional, affecting either individuals or whole border strips (where many individuals are bilingual but not all and anyhow one or the other language has clear preeminence in daily affairs) but not whole tribes or regions.
I find that the Celtic toponimy is restricted to the border zone, south of the Ebro (Flaviobriga does not count, being a Roman foundation), an area with alleged Celtic texts (one of which at least sounds Basque to me).
There's even less linguistic evidence of Celtic in the land of Cantabri and Astures, BTW. And even in Gallaecia it is quite weak.
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ReplyDeleteOctavià: you know you are persona non grata: you can be posting like forever, many comments per day and with eternal ramifications.
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ReplyDeleteThanks all for your informative comments. Highly busy at present to answer all. Will try to answer asap. I want tor ead this Aznar paper first.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading a lot about ancient middle-east history I see my hypothesis more and more plausible.
To be more concrete about my hypothesis, Galatians were acting as mercenaries in the middle eastern area and quite possibly some of them went to Aquitania in III b.C. with some other mercenaries from Assyria, from Palestine, from Pontus area,. These mercenaries probably forgot these antecedents that were rediscovered later (possibly after the Crusades).
Some impressionistic (impresionantes ?) highlights.
a) Assyria in achemenid persia was named Athura (from here came Athurates).
As you know from the begining of history in this area there were at least 3 language families attested (source: Mario Liverani, el Antiguo Oriente):
--Semitic in Levant and the steppes of the south mesopotamia,
then Akadia, Babilonia etc...
--Indoeuropean in West anatolia and west iran (Gutians were very possibly IE, attested 2200Bc and related with tocharians, called yuechi. I know chinese and that´s how a chinese will pronounce Guti; Hitites attested since asirian colonies period, source Trevor Bryce, El reino de los Hititas)
--the language speaked by Hurrians, Hattis etc...This language family is less known but it was pervasive in anatolia and northern mesopotamia and North West Iran. In short all around Armenian mountains: upper reaches of Eufrates and Tigris (this part later called Assyria), East and south-east Lake Urmia (where hurrian like speakers Manneans lived), the later Atropatene satrapy, Transcaucasia and the poontic area later occupied by the Kingdom of Pontus.
(cont.)
b) Toponimics in basque area. Araxes, Urumea (=Urmia), Aralar (=Ararat) toponimics in Guipuzcoa are possibly not causual. Just the tip of an Iceberg. It seems that when expanding in higher middle ages Basque were already aware of their middle-eastern origins and were renaming the area with middle eastern toponimics:
ReplyDelete--Bayone=¿Babilone?(unexplained, you can read the french entry in wikipedia)=Babilone
--Adour=¿Athure=Assirya?
--Elusates=mercenaries from the palestinian Elusates ?
--Midour=¿from Medes/Media?
--Baztan=¿from Urartian Bestam/Bastam fortress in Iran Azerbayan?
etc...
I agree that until now this might seem highly speculative, but some structure is emerging.
P.s. I missed Octaviá comments. He seems to be an expert in this Vasco-Caucasian issue...
Just for completeness regarding languages. South and east of mesopotamia other languages were spoken (Sumerian and Elamite), at present considered isolates. Some hypothesis relate them with Hurrite-like languages, some with Dravidian.The dravidian hypothesis implies that either sumerians came from SA either that Harapans came from middle east. A possible intermediate site is Jiroft.
ReplyDelete"Toponimics in basque area. Araxes, Urumea (=Urmia), Aralar (=Ararat)"
ReplyDeleteThe = signs would need to be demonstrated: urumea means "child of water" how is Urmia related (if at all)?! Aralar means "pasture of the valley" (which is, by the way), how is it related to Ararat?! I do not say they are not but you have to demonstrate it, to show that, for example, in Hurro-Urartean these words mean something similar.
Otherwise it's a mere coincidence of sound, which happens all the time. Ur, uru in Sumerian by the way is "city", not water. It's probably related to Basque uri, iri (modern hiri), as in Uribe or Basauri, but that is Neolithic or Chalcolithic wanderwort for "town" (see also urbs, Ilion, Iriko-Jerico, etc.)
"Babilone?(unexplained"...
Babylon is totally explained: Semitic Bab (wall) + pre-Semitic ilu, ilon, iri, uru... (city). Walled City. Similarly Irisalem (Jerusalem) is Blessed City, etc.
"Adour=¿"
Adur means saliva, mucosity, drool. Probably in the past humor (medical sense) and therefore the "magic flow" that permeates all. It is a very appropriate name for a river and is also related without almost any doubt to the widespread pre-IE dur-/tur- (Durus, Turia, Dour, Drawa...).
You speculate wildly... according to your knowledge, which is very limited.
"Baztan=¿from Urartian Bestam/Bastam fortress in Iran Azerbayan?"
It is absolutely crazy. Baztan surely has the same root as batzarre (assembly) or bazterra (shore... of the Bidasoa river).
This only shows how someone who wishes to see X will see X in this slippery zone of linguistics, specially if ignorant of the involved languages and local histories.
"P.s. I missed Octaviá comments."
You can go and visit his blog. There you can discuss nonsense with each other forever.
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ReplyDeleteMaju,
ReplyDeleteApparently it is not only a mere coincidence of sounds (this is possible as you say).
You like geometry ? Then take your atlas, cut the middle- east part translate and rotate it in order Babylonia point fits with Bayona.
(this is the toponimics that is still unexplained, check french wikipedia page; also Adour comes from the Athurates people, there is no doubt about this, which was the name of Assyria in Achemedid persia; Urmia is the name of a lake now in NWIran).
What do you see ? Apparently there is an isomorphism where toponimics coincide in orientation and topography in both places.
If it is confirmed (as you say it might be just sound and places coincidences) that this is not coincidence but design, when did this design arised ? The names used (Persian times) gives us an upper bound of V century b.C.
A first posibility is that this desing was effected when these tribes arrived there (around III b.C). Another is later during middle ages.
p.s. Thanks for pointing to Octavia blog. I wonder what he thinks about my hypothesis. He seems to favour a sooner entry of basque in Europe.
Maju,
ReplyDeleteYou are right that all this seems very speculative. By now I´m only collecting pieces and putting it together to see if the is any puzzle. Maybe all of this will evaporate.
I´ve read somewhere that the Pyrenean cromlech limits is just the Aralar-Urumea line to the west and the Aran Valley to the east.
You probably know more than me about the pyrenean cromlechs: when are they dated ?
Oki, Carpeta, you are a fool: what you say makes no sense at all.
ReplyDelete"Maybe all of this will evaporate".
I don't know in your mind but in reality it is already less than vapor.
"You probably know more than me about the pyrenean cromlechs: when are they dated ?"
They are Iron Age. What is most intriguing to me however is that they only precursor I know of is in the Mid-Danubian area, some 3000 years earlier: the Boléraz group.
But the cromlechs or stone rings are not defining of Basque-Aquitanian ethnic culture: they are too restricted to the mountains for that.
Maju,
ReplyDelete1. Linguistics: Your views on proto-basque and dialectization (your theory has no historical sense) are not accepted even by basque specialists. No more to discuss about this.
2. Onomastics:
Heraus paper: how many times should I repeat that undated onomastics (of any kind) has zero scientific value ? It´s like ceramic without context. Useless for scientific purposes. These latin/basque epigraphics could be from I b.C to IX b.C when romances developped. Is this range informative in our discussion ? Aznar´s is just an interview full of “I believe”, “My opinion”. It is ok to have beliefs and opinions. Science consist in proving that your beliefs and opinions are those that fits with facts and external evidences. Regarding Basque Pyrenean toponimics. Preciselly Villar (2005) adresses all these issues, debunking such claims in the south in pre-roman times. He talks a lot about Tovar. Of course i can not summarize in a comment 600 pages of a well argumented book. Definitivelly you need to find this book. It is a must for all those which want to debate these issues.
Finally, again you show a very short mathematical and scientific method knowledge. Comparing Aquitaine with La Rioja is dumb. You have to compare areas of claimed ancient basque language: aquitaine south of garrone with Navarra, whole Basque country, Part of Burgos, La Rioja, Norht of Soria, and parts of Huesca. Right ? See the maps you link (which in fact show the maps of navarra kingdom at its maximum extension). Then my claim holds.
3. History.
Celtiberians (I do posses the books i quoted, by far more complete than the wikipedia article), IE...are asides debates that add nothing. Not a single celt tribe was called Celtiberian. This was a greek name for the celts in Iberia the new the better: those in the Iberian mountains. Regarding IE you consider mere hypothesis as facts. In any case Kurgan or not, what does it changes for our debate ? It could be the case that there was languages previous to IE in europe and that basque was a late comer as I hypothesize and as it was the case possibly for etruscan. Same for Picts and ligurians: you views are out of the general consensus at present (pls read wikipedia article (english version)).
Cromlechs iron age ok, but when in Iron age ? Aquitanian III b.C. is Iron age.
In short, Maju, do you really have any serious unflawed argument that falsifies my hypothesis of basques as late III century bC late comers ?
(cont. answer to Heraus).
Maju,
ReplyDelete1. Linguistics: Your views on proto-basque and dialectization (your theory has no historical sense) differs from specialists. No more to discuss about this.
2. Onomastics:
Heraus paper: how many times should I repeat that undated onomastics (of any kind) has zero scientific value ? It´s like ceramic without context. Useless for scientific purposes. These latin/basque epigraphics could be from I b.C to IX b.C when romances developped. Is this range informative in our discussion ? Aznar´s is just an interview full of “I believe”, “My opinion”. It is ok to have beliefs and opinions. Science consist in proving that your beliefs and opinions are those that fits with facts and external evidences. Regarding Basque Pyrenean toponimics. Preciselly Villar (2005) adresses all these issues, debunking such claims in the south in pre-roman times. He talks a lot about Tovar. Of course i can not summarize in a comment 600 pages of a well argumented book. Definitivelly you need to find this book. It is a must for all those which want to debate these issues.
Finally, again you show a very short mathematical and scientific method knowledge. Comparing Aquitaine with La Rioja is dumb. You have to compare areas of claimed ancient basque language: aquitaine south of garrone with Navarra, whole Basque country, Part of Burgos, La Rioja, Norht of Soria, and parts of Huesca. Right ? See the maps you link (which in fact show the maps of navarra kingdom at its maximum extension). Then my claim holds.
3. History.
Celtiberians (I do posses the books i quoted, by far more complete than the wikipedia article), IE...are asides debates that add nothing. Not a single celt tribe was called Celtiberian. This was a greek name for the celts in Iberia the new the better: those in the Iberian mountains. Regarding IE you consider mere hypothesis as facts. In any case Kurgan or not, what does it changes for our debate ? It could be the case that there was languages previous to IE in europe and that basque was a late comer as I hypothesize and as it was the case possibly for etruscan. Same for Picts and ligurians: you views are out of the general consensus at present (pls read wikipedia article (english version)).
(cont. answer to Heraus.)
Heraus,
ReplyDeleteMaju is not serving me even as a sparring. You seem best documented.
Linguistics and onomastics:
You say:
“I do possess "El Euskara en La Rioja. Primeros testimonios". IMO after reading this book, the case is closed : there is enough evidence that a Basque dialect was spoken in La Rioja, a Basque dialect the characteristics of which can”.
Once again but surelly not last: dates ? I´m not denying that basque was spoken south of the pyrenees at some point of history (even today), there are basque toponimics....the point is when ?
Basque dense population in some parts of La Rioja is well explained because it was the frontier with Castilla and Aragon in middle ages.
You say:
“Basque dialects are probably a reduced illusion of what once were large dialectal domains” and .
“I would not be surprised if Biscayan could be proved to be what remains of a greater domain that once spanned Cantabria”.
Basque dialects can be explained by elite basque expansion in areas were basque was not spoken. This explains also the fact that Vizcayan dialect is (according to Gorrochategui) more similar to Souletine (Roncalese) than to others.
2 History:
Adour as a limit.
Your point then is that until 13 century AD basques were aplenty in right bank adour ? It is possible that you are right. I´ve not studied well this issue north of the pyrenees. It could be the case that the expansion of basque south of pyrenees did not implied north retraction.
Cantabrian tribes:
You say: “I don't doubt that IE languages were spoken amongst these tribes, the issue here is to discuss whether or not celtization was really that deep and it's just impossible to know with few tribe names of IE origins”.
This is exactly the issue Villar adresses from the linguistic point of view and there is no doubt. Other has studied from other points of view (archeologic etc...) with same conclusions. All these tribes were IE. Pls note that for villar Ancient means pre-roman sources or sources that were based in pre-roman sources.
“When you ally with someone, it's best to at least be buddies. If family, that's even greater. If anything, that Cantabrians and Aquitanians allied against the Romans prove they shared much more than being neighbours. The Aquitanians did not side with the Gauls when they were invaded by Caesar.”. I disagree and I can show you many cases of ancient tribes ´wherever in europe that allied with unrelated (by family) neighbours.
3. Genetics:
“As for them being newcomers, you'll have to explain why their modern descendants do show classical West European haplogroups and amongst Europeans are those who exihit the most little affinity with West Asians”.
That´s a good point..Can you be more concrete about this lack of affinity ? Y-cromosome ?.mtDNA ? autosomal ? For instance regarding some classical markers (i.e. RH) basques are quite similar to some caucasians. This has been explained as drift until now. Paper citation are welcome pls.
ps. Maju, I messed up my google account. I had to open a new one.
Is there a limit of 164 comments per thread or what ? Pls check again my last comment. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteI have one pending for answer Heraus.
It's you who is extending this quite empty debate. Anyhow:
ReplyDelete1. If you do not have at least two languages you cannot get a proto-language. I don't care what you or others say but 1x1=1, not 2.
2. "undated onomastics (of any kind) has zero scientific value"...
It has scientific value, just that you prefer to disdain them on any grounds.
Also from context we have dates: Roman Age, probably early.
"could be from I b.C to IX b.C when romances developped"...
9th century "before Christ" was when "Romances developed"?
I do not think you have any grounds to claim they are Medieval. They are Roman era. And the use of classic Latin and not Vulgar Latin (as in Veleia, for example) strongly suggests early Roman era.
There's no other blind than who does not want to see.
"Comparing Aquitaine with La Rioja is dumb".
Why? Aquitaine is larger, indeed. But both are peripheral Basque areas, more exposed to Roman influences like Latin or writing than the core.
"aquitaine south of garrone with Navarra, whole Basque country, Part of Burgos, La Rioja, Norht of Soria, and parts of Huesca".
That was exactly my point on density. It was you who raised the issue of density but I have not yet seen any figure like 3 slabs per square km or whatever. It's all but a rant.
"Not a single celt tribe was called Celtiberian".
I do have several books as well on the matter as well and Celtiberi were a single ethnicity living mostly in Soria, Teruel, Calatayud... Roman historians (Pliny I believe) gathers their own legend on how Celts and Iberians were fiercely confronted to each other in the area but eventually they signed some sort of peace and merged. Ovid, if my memory is correct, considers the Celtiberians the only civilized Celts, etc.
Some authors (but almost never Spanish ones) confuse Celtiberi(an) with Celts of Iberia but this is just wrong.
"Regarding IE you consider mere hypothesis as facts".
Theory. The Kurgan model is far more solid than any mere hypothesis.
Not only that: it is the only model that isn't full of holes.
"you views are out of the general consensus at present"
Re. Ligurians and Picts? Maybe but that's only because most Europeans speak primarily or only Indoeuropean and they are shaped by that. They choose because they are ethnically and they are ethnically because they speak a language: being IEs it's very difficult for them to think on pre-IEs and such.
In any case the evidence is nearly zero in both cases (excepted toponimy and archaeology, which support the pre-IE models at least to some extent) and it is all wild speculation.
When Heraus replies I'm closing this discussion. It has long outlived its usefulness. Thanks for nothing Carpeta.
I agree with the closing (truth hurts ?). You are repeating same arguments again and again based in Fernandez and Aznar onomastics non-science (no datation =speculation: that´s history).
ReplyDeleteBut my comment (the one you are commenting) is not appearing. Pls check. Also I do not know if you received my answer to Heraus. Pls confirm.
Thanks.
It seems that Blogger Spam Filter has you in some blacklist... wonder why.
ReplyDeleteYour comments have been restored.
The discussion is indeed becoming meaningless : Carpeta can contact me on my blog on whichever entry he wishes so that I can answer him as I'm clueless about what remains to be told now that the debate is derailed.
ReplyDeleteOk, thanks (again) Heraus. I'm hence closing comments now.
ReplyDelete