Basques
Basques are people living in both Spain and France.
236,000 Basques live in Spain (Basque provinces — Navarre, Guipuzcoa, Biscay, Alava), approximately 230,000 of them (2008) live in France (Labourd, Soule, Lower Navarre), and they also live in Latin America. They speak the Basque language and use the Latin alphabet. The oldest monument of Basque writing dates back to the 16th century. They are Catholics. They belong to the Indo-Mediterranean race.
Part of the scientists believe Basques to be the descendants of the local population of Neolithic Western Pyrenees. Some support the theory of the migration of Basque ancestors from the East (Greece, Africa, Caucasus, etc.) and that's where the ancient view on the genetic connection of Basques and Caucasians, in particular, Georgians, originates from. Part of the authors of the Georgian-Basque kinship hypothesis consider the Caucasian Iberians to be the ancestors of the Iberians of the Iberian Peninsula. On the contrary, others (references of ancient authors preserved in the writings of Strabo, Megasthenes, Dionysius Periegetes, Socrates, Eustathius) think that the Caucasian Iberians migrated from the Pyrenees; Some even deny the kinship of Western Europe and Eastern Iberians.
The hypothesis about the genetic connection of Basques and Georgians is based on the verified archeological data, including paleoanthropological data, ethnographic parallels and linguistic material of these two peoples. For example, Neolithic burials, the same type of dolmens, and the similarity of the burial inventory found in both regions are considered proof of the proximity of the peoples of the Iberian Peninsula and the Caucasus from ancient times.
Connections between Basques and Georgians, studied by linguists (H. Klaproth, F. Fita, W. Humboldt, H. Schuchardt, F. Müller, A. Tsagareli, N. Marr, G. Dumézil, C. C. Uhlenbeck, J. Braun, R. Lafon, K. Bouda, H. Vogt, I. Zitsari, A. Chikobava and others) are of great importance.
Literature: ძ ი ძ ი გ უ რ ი შ., ბასკურ-კავკასიური პრობლემა, თბ., 1981; М а р р Н. Я., Из поездки к европейским яфетидам, «Яфетический сборник», 1923, т. 3; მისივე, Из пиренейской Гурии, Тфл., 1927; М е л и к с е т-Б е к о в Л. М., Родство грузии с испанцами по древним источникам, Тфл., 1911.
N. Bregadze
