Abstract
Basque population history has been examined through classic genetic markers, mtDNA, Y chromosome haplogroups, craniometrics, and recently dental morphology. Dental morphological data show Basques have a classic European dental pattern but fall as an outlier among European populations. Expanding on that work, Basque tooth size was examined to further evaluate the affinities of the Basque population. Mesiodistal and buccolingual maximum crown measurements were taken from medieval and post medieval skeletons from the Catedral de Santa María in Vitoria, Spain, along with living samples of modern Basques, Spanish, and Spanish Basques from dental students at the Universidad del País Vasco. A dental metric examination affirms the outlier status of Basques, as they exhibit smaller crown areas than neighboring populations. In biodistance analyses Basque populations group with linguistically and geographically distant populations. Even with gene flow from Spain, France, and North Africa, Basque individuals still demonstrate a unique pattern coincident with their ancient origins.
Highlights
The Basque Country, Euskalherria, is located in the phisms show low levels of diversity, suggesting southwestern corner of France and north central that this population has been evolving in the re
To further explore dental variation among Basque populations we evaluate here dental metrics
Examining all measurements for male Euro-Dental metrics were evaluated for sexual dimor- pean samples, medieval Basques show scores of phism within the five samples: medieval, post me- disproportionally small teeth, with post medieval dieval, modern Basque, Spanish, and Spanish
Summary
The Basque Country, Euskalherria, is located in the phisms show low levels of diversity, suggesting southwestern corner of France and north central that this population has been evolving in the re-. Many anthropological ap- gy was investigated to explore the population hisproaches have been taken to better understand the tory of this group. Scott and colleagues explored Basque blood groups, finding that (2013) found that Basque samples, both historic. Basques had high frequencies of the blood type O and living, have high rates of hypocone and hyallele 75%), low rates of blood type B allele Western Europeans (Alberdi et al, 1957; Chalmers all category of Western Europe, within the et al, 1948; van der Heide et al, 1952). These unu- ‘Eurodont’ dental pattern (as coined by that study)
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