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In this note I analyze possible relations of the Basques with other
peoples. This has been prompted by the comments of Robert Eckert on his
recent letter to Larry Trask and on the e-mail's that have been
interchanged between Eckert, Trask, Carrasquer-Vidal and myself.

Eckert supports Bengtsen theory that Basque is a Dene-Caucasian
Language. My understanding is that the historical frame that Eckert
wants for this theory is that Dene-Caucasian original homeland is the
Central Asia and Siberian lands and that they have been wandering up and
down an enormous area. In more recent times he wants to put the
Dene-Caucasian tag on a number of nomadic bands including the Hunic, the
Avars and also the Basques. Originally Eckert maintained that the Basque
did only arrive to his present day location as late as 400 A.D. and that
the Roman historic references to them, e.g. in Strabo, where late
interpolations. Trask counterattacked recalling all the data in favor of
the Aquitanic as Proto-Basque theory and I sent him a very long list of
Roman authors quoting the Basques and I argued that it was impossible to
assume that all were interpolations. My understanding is that we have
convinced him that Basques where there at the arrival of the Romans but
he maintains now that the Proto-Basque speakers arrived to Iberia just a
short time before the Romans did. That means he keeps his thesis but he
has moved a little bit his timeline.

I plan to analyze the evidence relative to this discussion in three
steps that will take three week-ends: this week-end I will analyze the
situation of the area in the period around the arrival of the Romans.
Next week-end I will deal with the neolithic and the third week-end I
will analyze supporting genetic and climatic issues.

My main line of argumentation here is to present the Basques as mountain
dwelling and relatively backward but clearly included in the cultural
sphere of the original inhabitants of the Iberian Peninsula. The thread
of this cultural area goes from megalitism to the Iberian cultures of
the period just before the arrival of the Romans. The heart of this
culture is in the Mediterranean seashore, so the Basques are not a part
of this heart but they show a long and strong influence by it. The
conclusion is that they are not late moment invaders and that they have
been living in contact with the Iberian for a long time. They are also
'native' they are not invaders

To analyze the cultural framework of the Basques at the arrival of the
Romans there is no way out, we have to use Strabon:

"The mountain dwellers eat mainly oak fruits two thirds of the year
milling them and baking bread". So, Basque availability of cereal crops
was small.

"They know beer but the wine is very rare". Again low level of
agricultural development. "They use only leather boats on the marshes
and the estuaries". That means they have only the most primitive see
going technology totally inadequate to master the stormy weather of the
Bay of Biscay.

"But his ferocity and brutality is due: not only to the continuous wars
but also to their far away geographical position. His misery is derived
from the poor areas in the mountains they are living in, nevertheless
due to the Roman presence and resulting peace this is changing, even for
the most ferocious Cantabrians". That means: again poor communities
living on mountain tops and giving to a Greek an impression of
backwardness. Nevertheless the message is that the primitivism of the
Cantabrians is the worst. Nevertheless in other chapter of Strabon the
image provided by the Basques is a little bit more civilized: "In
Calagurris, town of the Bascones, did Sertorius his last stand". This
text is telling us not only that the Bascones had a town on the Ebro
river, but that they were allied of Sertorius. Sertorius was a Roman
general of the Democratic
Party, he managed to convince many Iberian tribes to help him in the
civil wars. The Basque of the banks of the Ebro also followed him. This
implies that this people had already a reasonable level of civilization.
To take this decision they should have had a good understanding of the
political situation in Rome and their implications for them. Graco was
also a head of the democratic faction in Rome and he had good relations
with the tribes of the area of the mid Ebro. He founded Gracurris, not
far away from Calagurris, and settled it down with Iberian and/or
Bascones tribesmen.

The Bascones closer to the mid Ebro had been having relations with
the Romans and they would have appear to them as much more civilized
than the Cantabros. This is perfectly coherent with the fact that the
Romans went through extraneous efforts to vanquish the Cantabrian but
the conquest of the Bascones was a much easier affair. This also explain
why the Romans never tried to change the settling pattern of the
Bascones in the Pyrenee while they engaged in wholesales populations
movements to reduce the strength of the Cantabrians. The Cantabrians
were Indo-Europeans, i.e. non natives to Iberia. The conclusion of this
should be that the Bascones are more related with the native Iberian
cultural area than with the Indo-European invaders.

This inclusion of the Bascones in the native area is reinforced by the
term they use for town. They use the Iberian "iri" not the
Indoeuropean "briga". Indeed it has become almost compulsory on all
books on the prehistory of Spain to divide the Iberian peninsula at the
arrival of the Romans in two cultural areas: the invaders area of
"briga"
and the native area of "ili". Such a map can be found on the "Los
indoeuropeos y los origenes de europa" from Francisco Villar and in the
article "Las lenguas de los pueblos paleohispanicos" of Gorrochategui.
The area of the Bascones is "ili" or "uri" as demonstrate by place names
like Pompeoili, Iliberris Auscitana, Iluro, Ilurcis and Caragurris and
Gracurris mentioned above. This area is not limited to the Peninsula it
goes over both sides of the Pyrinee and it includes the areas considered
Aquitanic of Gallia. Indeed Iliberris Auscitana was in the north of the
Pyrinees. This reinforces the idea that the Basque speaking Aquitanic
were inside the same "native" cultural sphere than the Bascones of the
south of the Pyrinees. Indeed there is a sentence from Julius Cesar in
the "War of the Galias" that the Aquitani were not similar to the Galic
but to the Iberian.

Nevertheless Basque is not equivalent to Iberian. Indeed where they
equivalent, Iberian script would have been descifred by now. The
relationship between both languages can be described quoting Michelena
"In the onomastical set is where there is a larger coincidence of Basque
and Iberian, the number of correspondences is too high to be due to
chance" Villar agrees with this point of view and states "It appears
that the relationship between Basque and Iberian is strong but non
genetic, and that the correspondence should have moved from the more
civilized Iberian to the less civilized Bascones". The unescapable
conclusions is that Basques and Iberians had been living together and
influencing each other for a very long time at the moment that both
peoples appears on the historical scencario. This contradicts directly
the statement of Eckert that Basques arrived to Iberia not too long
before the Roman conquest

This does not mean that there is not mark of Indo-European invasions on
the present day Basque area. They are one of the two natural ways of
penetration in Hispania from the north; so, they were in the direct path
of the invaders. In the Basque country there are plenty of archeological
remains that are clearly from that source. There are many examples from
the Celtic remains of Cortes de Navarra to the Indo-European names of
the
Austrigones, Bardulos y Caristios that were settling the present day
western Basque country at the arrival of the Romans. The beautiful
collection of gold bowls found in Escoriaza also deserve mention. Indeed
the hydronimy of the Western Basque country includes names like Deva and
Nervion that are Celtic. It is not accidental that the town founded by
the Romans on the Cantabrian sea shore was called Flaviobriga and not
Flavioili had it would have been the case were the area controlled by
"natives" of the Iberian cultural sphere. These invasions had been going
on for a very long time and to explain properly the resulting scenario,
it is necessary to assume multiple invading waves. Not only the Celts
but older Indo-European peoples had been on the move for quite a while.
Gimbutas speak of four Indoeuropean waves over Europe. According to
Javier de Hoz the Lusitanian spoke an Indo-European language that was
not Celt. Cantabrian are also considered Indo-European and they should
have been the first to arrive. This will explain that they had been
pushed to the mountains by later arrivals. There are remains of more
elusive invaders. Some toponimic has been considered as Ilirian or
Ligurian by different authors. There are plenty of toponimic with "sc"
Benasque, Huesca, Birovesca. They are allocated to the Ligurians. The
German author Schulten managed to find Ligurians more or less
everywhere. Ilirians are associated to toponimic like: Arganda,
Argandonya Arlanza, Berganza and others with the element nt on it. This
thesis is supported by Blazquez.
It shall not be forgotten that the Pyrinees was not a frontier but the
backbone of the Basque lands. It provided them with a very good
defensive base to resist against the invading waves. Furthermore the
open lands of the rest of the Iberian Peninsula offered to possible
invaders plenty of opportunity to continue wandering and they
discouraged any attempt to dislodge the Bascones from their mountains.

All this invasions passed over and over and they should have had a
strong impact on Basque culture. This or that characteristic of the
Basque language have been allocated to early Indo-European influence,
e.g. the term zillar for silver, but the dry fact is that the Basques
were not speaking a Indo-European language when the Roman arrived.


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