page_title: Origin of the Basques
section_title: Native origin theory
hierarchical_section_title: Origin of the Basques / Native origin theory
caption_attribution_description: Mapa de yacimientos con Arte Paleolítico en Europa
context_page_description: The origin of the Basques and the Basque language is a controversial topic that has given rise to numerous hypotheses. Modern Basque, a descendant or close relative of Aquitanian and Proto-Basque, is the only Pre-Indo-European language that is extant in western Europe. The Basques have therefore long been supposed to be a remnant of a pre-Indo-European population of Europe.
  The main hypotheses about the origin of the Basques are:
  Native origin, the mainstream theory, according to which the Basque language would have developed over the millennia entirely between the north of the Iberian Peninsula and the current south of France, without the possibility of finding any kind of relationship between the Basque language and other modern languages in other regions.
  Basque-Iberism theorizes the existence of a kinship between the Basque and the Iberian language, and therefore between their speakers. Others claim there is not a direct connection, including Koldo Mitxelena who claims the similarities between Iberian and Basque are attributed solely to the relationship of vicinity, and not to any kinship.
context_section_description: According to Stephen Oppenheimer, from c. 16,000 BC, the warmer climate allowed the expansion of proto-Basque groups, or proto-Europeans, across the north of Africa and the entire continent of Europe, expanding the Magdalenian culture across Europe.
  In 2008, the Finnish linguist Kalevi Wiik proposed that the current Basque language is the remainder of a group of "Basque languages" that were spoken in the Paleolithic throughout western Europe and that retreated with the progress of the Indo-European languages. Wiik states that his theory coincides with the homogeneous distribution of the Haplogroup R1b in Atlantic Europe.
  Ludomir R. Lozny states that "Wiik's controversial ideas are rejected by the majority of the scholarly community, but they have attracted the enormous interest of a wider audience."
caption: Distribution of Paleolithic settlements in Europe.
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