The Basque Country, the oldest country-nation in Europe, is a survival

Euskal Herria (name which in Basque language means "Basque tounge nation" and appoints both the land and its inhabitants, the Basque Nation and the Country of the Basques) is, first of all, a puzzling survival.

Placed on the Southeast of Europe, by the bend of the Vizcaya Gulf on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean and riding on the Western Pyrenees, adds up a bit less than three millions people (2.873.512 according to last census, the French from 1990 and the Spanish one from 1991, 2.907.003 by 1993) within below twenty-one thousand square kilometres (20.644).

Euskal Herria integrates six provinces (Araba, Bizkaia, Gipuzkoa, Lapurdi, Nafarroa and Zuberoa; Nafarroa detached and segregated from its Northern part: Behe-Nafarroa, by the French-Spainsh border).

The lands and population of Euskal Herria are nowadays issued under the domination of the Spanish and French Goverments (86% of the territory and 91% of the population in Spain whereupon 14% of the territory and 9% of the population are in France).

But in the neolithic period tha Basque nation was already performed and spoke euskara. They spoke the language which is the only pre-indoeuropean one of Europe, the only one previous to the arrival of theindoeuropean tribes to Europe about four thousand (4.000) years ago. Euskara (Basque), the only language without any known relatives, the island tounge. The fact that current and present names for tools the knife or tha axe include the root aitz ("stone") points beyond any doubt that when they were named, the axe or the knife were stone-made. The Basque nation and its language are the eldest alive in Europe.

One hundred fifty thousand (150.000) years ago, during the intermediate phase of the Riss Glaciation, there were already human beings on the territory which we now call Euskal Herria. A small Neanderthal population lived here in caves, rock shelters or out in the open during Middle Paleolithic between the years 90.000 and 32.000 bC. By the end of the Upper Paleolithic (which embrace from the 32.000 to the 8.500 bC) appeared the human type which would lead to the "basque type".

There is in Carranza, at western Euskal Herria, a santuary built between years 25.000 and 16.000 b.C., and in some other places several more built into caves from magdalenensys age (latest phase of the Upper Paleolithic): the one in Santimamiñe decorated around year 13.500 b.C, the one Arenaza, around year 13.000 b.C, the one at Ekain, etc, etc.

The series of skulls found into the cave of Urtiaga (in Iciar, Deva, Guipúzcoa) allows the contemplation of the performace of the human basque type. The eldest of those skulls, from the latest Upper Pelolithic, both bears a great resemblance with the Cromagnon man and shows the first spets of an evolution towards the present basque type while the aziliensys craniums (from the period which goes between the 8.500 and the 5.000 b.C.) found in the same site are intermediates between the Cromagnon and the Basque types. The craniums from the Bronze Age found on the mountanious area of our country are most already of those of the basque type.

All the above points to the fact that the basque nation did NOT shaped outside the country to come later to stay in it. According to that, the Basque nation was originated in the Western Pirenees by native evolution from the Cromagnon man. Those metioned peculiar craniumologic features have been later supported by the researches that show the peculiarities of human basque type´s blood (hight percentage of group 0 and a very hight percentage of Rh negative).

A short time ago a research about the genetic history of the Iberian Peninsula and another referring to Euskal Herria (called "Principal component analisis of the gene frequencies and the origin of basques") have been published in the USA. Bertrandpetit and Fancesc Calafell, anthropologists from the university of Barcelona have studied the frequencies of several genes into DNA, which hereditary transmission is perfectly known and thus tehy have bee able to establish that "The genetic differentiation of the Basque Country was originated about 18.000 years ago during the chilliest point of the last glaciation". Like one of this authors has explained, "the idea of the Basque as a native population, in the sense of having remained in the same place for thousands of years" has always thrived. Waht the research brins new is, like Calafell says: "We have corroborated this hipothesis and accurated it, adducing dates and mechanisms".

Euskal Herria is, first of all, a survival in extended interaction with a land which has originated a productive consciousness and a repeated resistance agaist foreign domination. It has been the historic process oh long interaction between a human comunity and a land during thousans and thousands of years (al least 18.000)

which has brought forth the Basque Nation as a result.

It has been a fruitful interaction because it has turned that human group into an ethnic group, into a nation, into the Basque Nation. Y le ha fabricado un inestimable tesoro: su "conciencia productiva". Es decir, le ha fabricado lo que según un autor vasco (Iñaki Gil de San Vicente) es: "un conjunto de formas y contenidos que dotan de sentido a una comunidad haciéndole disponer de CONCIENCIA DE SI, de autoidentidad propia y diferenciada de otras comunidades"

So far it's scienctifically proved that the Basque nation has been, at least, 18.000 years (eighteen thousand years) living steadily in the territory of Euskal Herria. And that Basque nation has often played the lead at collective resistance agains the foreign domination which is the breeding ground for the nationalist phenomenon, for the manifestation of the will to build themselves as a Nation.

About all of it are we going to talk here.