Introduction

In Genesis 10 and 1Chronicles 1, the fifth son of the patriarch Japheth is named Tubal.

Genesis 10:1-2 These are the generations of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth; sons were born to them after the flood. ² The sons of Japheth: Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras. (RSV)

The name Tubal (SHD 8422) means you shall be brought, and is either of foreign derivation (Strong) or from the root yabal (2986): to bring, lead, carry, conduct, bear along. Similarly, the Encyclopedia Judaica states that Tubal is a generic name for smith, derived from ybl, to bring or produce. These people were the Tublâ or Tabal of the Assyrian inscriptions. In the Septuagint the name is given as Thobel, and Thober in the Codex Alexandrinus (Ezek. 39:1).

To the Greeks, the sons of Tubal were the Τιβαρηνοί (Tibarenoi); to the Romans they were the Tibareni; while Josephus referred to them as Thobeles. Herodotus says the land of the Tibarenians belonged to the 19th satrapy of Darius the Persian (Histories, III, 94). In VII,78 we see the Tibarenians allied with their cousins the Moschians, sons of Meshech. Both peoples were renowned for their archery skills, and the close association of the descendants of Tubal with those of Meshech even to the present day is attested in several of the prophecies in the Bible that have a future fulfilment. These will be covered later.

The patronymic Tubal is preserved today in the River Tobol and the city of Tobolsk in Russia, and in Tblisi, the capital of Georgia, the area closely associated with the descendants of Tubal. In his definitive work, Georgia in Antiquity, David Braund firstly quotes the Roman Appian (who gives every variation of Georgian origins), and then gives references to Tubal from other ancient writers.

Appian gives the range of opinion on the two Iberias: ‘As for the Iberians of Asia, some think them descendants of the European Iberians, others think them their ancestors, while others think that they simply share the same name’

(Mithr. 101).⁸¹ Even in modern times, scholars have

sought to establish a link between the two Iberias, particularly between the Georgian language of Transcaucasian Iberia and the language of the Basques, though few linguists would now support such a connection.⁸²

Footnotes:

81 … Strabo 1.3.21; Avienus Or. mar. 882-4. Cf. Moses of Chorene 2.8, with Toumanoff (1963), 306 n.4, for the tradition that Nebuchadnezzar brought Iberians (and apparently Libyans) from the west and settled them in Transcaucasia. It seems that Heracles overcame Glaucus in Transcaucasian Iberia: schol. Ap. Rhod. 2.767.

82 Priscian, Inst. gramm. 6.8.44 (p.249, Keil), distinguishes Transcaucasian Iberians, in Greek ’Ibhr, ’IbhroV, from those of Spain, in Greek ’IbhroV, ’Ibhron; cf. 7.3.12. Strabo records a tradition that the availability of gold in both Iberias explains the name: Strabo, 11.2.19, p.499 … (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1994, p. 20).

It is not unreasonable to suggest, however, that the Lower Caucasus is where the descendants of Tubal began their westward migrations to the better-known Iberia in the peninsula comprising modern Spain, Portugal and Andorra, as it was relatively close to the Ararat region from which the dispersal of the tribes commenced after the Flood.

It is by no means unusual for two quite disparate places to have the same name, as we see with (Greater) Scythia just north of the Black Sea and Scythia as an early name for Scandinavia (see the paper Sons of Japheth: Part III Magog (No. 46C)). Similarly, there was a distinct region known as Albania located beside the Caspian Sea and to the north of the mouth of the river Kura – far removed from the present country of Albania on the Adriatic coast, but possibly connected to it. Braund gives the supposed origin of the Caucasian Albani. As with the Iberians, there is the suggestion of reverse migration into the Caucasus, which is by no means improbable (cf. Thracians into Asia Minor).

It should not surprise that the Transcaucasian Albani were said to have come from Italy with Heracles, as he drove the cattle of Geryon from Spain to the Caucasus, traversing the world. [⁸³ Another version makes the Albani the descendants of Jason: Solinus, 14.5.] (ibid., p. 20).

Albania in the Caucasus approximated modern Azerbaijan and a small area of northern Iran.

We will now look at the two widely separated groups of people known as Iberians.

Caucasian Iberians

From Wikipedia we get an overview of the original peoples of the Caucasus, and the forebears of the Georgians in particular.

The Caucasian Iberians were an ancient Ibero-Caucasian people who inhabited the east and southeast of the Transcaucasus region in prehistoric and historic times. Ancient Iberians are identified as modern eastern Georgians who have originated from the early Georgian state of Iberia-Kartli.

The original land known as Iberia was located south of the Caucasus Mountains and above the most northerly reaches of the Kura or Cyrus (now, Mtkvari) river. The Kura river, and the Araxes further south, were said to be too dangerous to navigate, but the valleys of these rivers were the means of land communication in early times.

The Wikipedia article on ‘Caucasian Iberia’ has this to say on the history of the region:

The area was inhabited in earliest times by several relative tribes of Tiberani, Moschi, Saspers, Daiokhi, etc collectively called Iberians (the Eastern Iberians) by ancient and Roman authors. Iberians called their country Kartli after a mythic chief, Kartlos. One of the Iberian tribes of Mtskheta (the future capital of the Iberian kingdom) dominated the early Kingdom. The Mtskheta tribe was later ruled by a principal locally known as mamasakhlisi (“the father of the household” in Georgian).

Georgian chronicle Kartlis Tskhovreba (“History of Kartli”) claims that a Persian general Azo of Alexander’s army, massacred a local ruling family and conquered the area, until being defeated at the end of the 4th century BCE by Prince Pharnavaz, who was at that time a local chief. Pharnavaz, victorious in a power struggle, became the first king of Iberia (ca. 302-237 BC). Driving back an invasion, he subjugated the neighbouring areas, including significant part of the western Georgian state of Colchis (locally known as Egrisi). Now Pharnavaz focused on social projects, including the citadel of the capitol, the Armaztsikhe, and the idol of the god Armazi (derived from the Persian god Ahura-Mazda). He also reformed the Georgian written language, and created a new system of administration subdividing the country in several counties called saeristavos. His successors managed to gain control over the mountainous passes of the Caucasus with the Daryal (also known as the Iberian Gates) being the most important of them.

The period following this time of prosperity was one of incessant warfare though. Iberia was forced to defend against numerous invasions into their territories. Iberia lost some of its southern provinces to Armenia, and the Colchian lands seceded to form separate princedoms (sceptuchoi). In the end of the 2nd century BCE, the Pharnavazid king Farnadjom was dethroned by his own subjects and the crown given to the Armenian prince Arshak who ascended the Iberian throne in 93 BCE, establishing the Arshakids dynasty.

The movement of the Armenians into Georgia was probably the source of the intrusion of the YDNA G Haplogroup of the Assyrians and that genetic structure became the major YDNA group of both Armenia and Georgia. The article continues:

Roman general Pompey invaded Iberia in 65 BC, during his war with Mithradates VI of Pontus, and Armenia; but Rome did not establish her power permanently over Iberia. Nineteen years later, the Romans again marched (36 BCE) on Iberia forcing King Pharnavaz II to join their campaign against Albania as their ally. While another Georgian kingdom of Colchis was administered as a Roman province, Iberia freely accepted the Roman Imperial protection and became her ally.

Retrieved from:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caucasian_Iberians

There were said to be 38 Caucasian languages between the Black and Caspian Seas, as well as four main genetic groupings: North-east, North-central, North-west and Southern (or Kartvelian), which includes Georgian [Lafon]. The name for Iberia is Kartli in Georgian, and the kingdom of Kartli is said to have existed from about the 4^th century BCE to the 5^th century CE.

The history of the region is summarised on another website.

According to (a) majority of scholars the ancient country of Tubal (Tabal) comprised the area of Great Cappadocia (now territory of Turkey). Already the modern scholars identified the term Tubal with Tabal, Tobal, Jabal and Tibarenoi. Many authors, following Josephus (1st century AD), related the term to Iber. Concerning the question of the ethnic affinity of the population of Tubal, Josephus wrote: "Tobal gave rise to the Tobals, which are now called Iberians". This version was repeated by Eustathius of Antioch, Bishop Theodoret and others. Iberians were Georgians, the population of the Kingdom of Iberia (Eastern and South-Eastern Georgia). One of greatest Georgian historians of the 20th century, Ivane Javakhishvili, considered Tabal, Tubal, Jabal and Jubal to be ancient Georgian tribal designations. On the evidence of Hecataeus, Herodotus, Xenophon, Strabo and others, the Georgian (Kartvelian) tribe of Tibarenoi lived in the north of the territory of Tubal. Main sources of the history of Tubal are also Assyrian texts of the 9th- 7th centuries BC, the Cappadocian tablets and the hieroglyphic-Luwian inscriptions of the 9th - 8th centuries BC.

(http://www.for.ge/Georgian%20blacksmithing%20history.htm)

Iberians of the Iberian Peninsula

The Wikipedia entry on the Iberian people provides an overview of their history.

The original peoples of the Iberian peninsula, consisting of a number of separate tribes, are given the generic name of Iberians. This may have included the Basques, the only pre-Celtic people in Iberia surviving to the present day as a separate ethnic group.

The seafaring Phoenicians, Greeks and Carthaginians successively settled along the Mediterranean coast and founded trading colonies there over a period of several centuries.

Around 1100 BCE Phoenician merchants founded the trading colony of Gadir or Gades (modern day Cádiz). In the 8th century BCE the first Greek colonies, such as Emporion (modern Empúries), were founded along the Mediterranean coast on the East, leaving the south coast to the Phoenicians. The Greeks are responsible for the name Iberia, after the river Iber (Ebro). In the 6th century BCE the Carthaginians arrived in Iberia while struggling with the Greeks for control of the Western Mediterranean. Their most important colony was Carthago Nova (Latin name of modern day Cartagena).

In 219 BCE, the first Roman troops invaded the Iberian Peninsula, during the Second Punic war against the Carthaginians, and annexed it under Augustus after two centuries of war with the Celtic and Iberian tribes and the Phoenician, Greek and Carthaginian colonies becoming the province of Hispania.

Hispania supplied the Roman Empire with food, olive oil, wine and metal. The emperors Trajan, Hadrian and Theodosius I, the philosopher Seneca and the poets Martial and Lucan were born from families living in Iberia.

In the early 5th century, Germanic tribes invaded the peninsula, namely the Suevi, the Vandals and their allies, the Sarmatian Alans. Only the kingdom of the Suevi would endure after the arrival of another wave of Germanic invaders, the Visigoths, who conquered all of the Iberian peninsular and expelled or partially integrated the Vandals and the Alans. The Visigoths eventually conquered the Suevi kingdom and its capital city Bracara (modern day Braga) in 584-585.

The Vandals in the main entered and settled North Africa.

The natives of Tarshish were the original Celtic groups in Iberia and these appear to be the ancestors of the Basques also. However, Basque YDNA is R1b and their YDNA may have been an earlier form from K as we find the same K2 form among the Welsh and in Tyre and Malta. Tarshish ran naval expeditions from there across the Atlantic for centuries (see Cyrus Gordon’s work Before Columbus, Touchstone Press, 1972).

Traditionally, Tubal was also said to be the founder of the Portuguese city of Setubal.

Celtiberians

The Wikipedia article gives details of the people who had migrated into the Iberian Peninsula from Gaul. To the Romans the terms Celt and Gaul were apparently interchangeable. It is interesting that “metalwork stands out in Celtiberian archaeological finds”, a hint perhaps of descent from Tubal the smith.

Celtiberians (or Celt-Iberians) were a Celtic people of late La Tène culture living in the Iberian Peninsula, chiefly in what is now north central Spain and northern Portugal, before and during the Roman Empire. The group originated when Celts migrated from Gaul (now France) and integrated with the local Iberian people. A sign that the two populations intermingled can be detected in the presence of Celtic elements among the names of Celtiberian nobility.

The Celtiberian language is attested from the first century BCE. Other, possibly Celtic languages, like Lusitanian, were also spoken in pre-Roman Iberia. The Lusitani gave their name to Lusitania, the Roman province name covering current Portugal and Extremadura. Extant tribal names include the Arevaci, Belli, Titti, and Lusones.

History

The earliest Celtic presence in Iberia was that of the southeastern Almería culture of the Bronze Age. In the tenth century BCE, a fresh wave of Celts migrated into the Iberian peninsula and penetrated as far as Cadiz. They brought aspects of La Tène culture with them and adopted much of the culture they found. This basal Indo-European culture was of seasonally transhumant cattle-raising pastoralists protected by a warrior elite, similar to those in other areas of Atlantic Europe, centered in the hill-forts, locally termed castros, that controlled small grazing territories. These settlements of circular huts survived until Roman times across the north of Iberia, from Northern Portugal, Asturias and Galicia to the Basque Country. …

The cultural stronghold of Celtiberians was the northern area of the central meseta in the upper valleys of the Tagus and Douro east to the Iberus (Ebro) river, in the modern provinces of Soria, Guadalajara and Teruel. There, when Greek and Roman geographers and historians encountered them, the established Celtiberians were controlled by a military aristocracy that had become a hereditary elite. …

Metalwork stands out in Celtiberian archeological finds, partly from its indestructible nature, emphasizing Celtiberian articles of warlike uses, horse trappings and prestige weapons. The two-edged sword adopted by the Romans was previously in use among the Celtiberians, and Latin lancea, a thrown spear, was a Hispanic word, according to Varro. Celtiberian culture was increasingly influenced by Rome in the two final centuries BCE.

From the third century, the clan was superseded as the basic Celtiberian political unit by the oppidum a fortified organized city with a defined territory that included the castros as subsidiary settlements. These civitates as the Roman historians called them, could make and break alliances, as surviving inscribed hospitality pacts attest, and minted coinage. The old clan structures lasted in the formation of the Celtiberian armies, organized along clan-structure lines, with consequent losses of strategic and tactical control.

The Celtiberians were the most influential ethnic group in pre-Roman Iberia, but they had their largest impact on history during the Second Punic War, during which they became the (perhaps unwilling) allies of Carthage in its conflict with Rome, and crossed the Alps in the mixed forces under Hannibal's command. As a result of the defeat of Carthage, the Celtiberians first submitted to Rome in 195 BCE; T. Sempronius Gracchus spent the years 182 to 179 pacifying (as the Romans put it) the Celtiberians; however, conflicts between various semi-independent bands of Celtiberians continued. After the city of Numantia was finally taken and destroyed by Scipio Aemilianus Africanus the younger after a long and brutal siege that ended the Celtic resistance (154 - 133 BCE), Roman cultural influences increased; this is the period of the earliest Botorrita inscribed plaque; later plaques, significantly, are inscribed in Latin. The war with Sertorius, 79 - 72 BCE, marked the last formal resistance of the Celtiberian citie to Roman domination, which submerged the Celtiberian culture.

The Celtiberian presence remains on the map of Spain in hundreds of Celtic place-names. The archaeological recovery of Celtiberian culture commenced with the excavations of Numantia, published between 1914 and 1931.

According to the theory developed by Bosch Gimpera (Two Celtic Waves in Spain, 1943), the earliest Celtic presence in Iberia was that of the southeastern Almería Culture of the Bronze Age; in the tenth century BCE, a fresh wave of Celts migrated into the Iberian peninsula and penetrated as far as Cadiz, bringing aspects of La Tène culture (fifth century BCE) with them and adopting much of the culture they found.

The ancient Iberian language was recorded on stone, metal tablets and coins found in eastern and southern Spain and southern France and dated between the 6^th and 1^st centuries BCE. Iberian itself was once thought to be ancestral to Basque (Larramendi, 1728), but this has since been refuted by most scholars (e.g. L. Michelena, 1964), although Trask concedes that it may be a distant relative of Basque.

The following is an abstract entitled ‘Iberia: Population genetics, anthropology, and linguistics’ from Human Biology journal that gives an alternative origin of the first people into Iberia.

Basques, Portuguese, Spaniards, and Algerians have been studied for HLA and mitochondrial DNA markers, and the data analysis suggests that pre-Neolithic gene flow into Iberia came from ancient white North Africans (Hamites). The Basque language has also been used to translate the Iberian-Tartesian language and also Etruscan and Minoan Linear A. Physical anthropometry of Iberian Mesolithic and Neolithic skeletons does not support the demic replacement in Iberia of pre-existing Mesolithic people by Neolithic people bearing new farming technologies from Europe and the Middle East (by Arnaiz-Villena, Antonio, Martinez-Laso, Jorge, Alonso-Garcia, Jorge, Oct. 199).

Other relevant genetic research on the Iberian Peninsula was conducted by The American Society of Human Genetics. Their 1999 report by Matthew E. Hurles et al. was entitled RecentMale-MediatedGeneFlowoveraLinguisticBarrierinIberia,SuggestedbyAnalysisofaY-ChromosomalDNAPolymorphism,

It concludes as follows:

Although a statistically significant difference has been shown between Basques and other populations, including Catalans, in studies using 49f (Lucotte and Hazout Lucotte and Hazout, 1996; Poloni et al. Poloni et al., 1997), a study using Y-chromosomal microsatellites (Pérez-Lezaun et al. Pérez-Lezaun et al., 1997) finds no such difference. Here, we show that a specific Y-chromosomal lineage, which has a recent origin and is rare or absent in most parts of the world, is shared at high frequency between Basques and Catalans. This constitutes evidence for substantial recent male-mediated gene flow over a major linguistic barrier.

Basque is a non-Indo-European language and has no relationship to the other ethnic groups around them and no close affinities to any other extant language. The Basques are, however, YDNA R1b (noted as Haplogroup 22 chromosomes).

http://www.ajhg.org/AJHG/fulltext/S0002-9297(07)62152-1

The Basques

These were the people known to the Romans as the Vascones, a name shortened to Vascs and which in time became Basques. Despite their fierce independence, it is noteworthy that the Basques never presented a military threat to the Romans; and they were not subdued by either the Franks or the Visigoths who arrived later. The Basque region today consists of two autonomous communities of four provinces in Spain and three provinces in France, all at the western end of the Pyrenees mountains and alongside the Bay of Biscay.

The Basque name for their nation is Euskal Herria (land of the Basque language) and for themselves, euskaldunak, meaning literally one who has the Basque language; hence they define themselves by their language, which has long been assumed to be unique or, at the very least, unclassifiable. It is interesting that foreigners who have learnt the Basque language are also entitled to be called euskaldunak. The Basques also thought of themselves as descendants of centaurs (cantavres), who were probably mounted bowmen of the Scythian type. It is stated further that:

Basque intellectuals have named Tubal as the ancestor of Basques, and by extension, the Iberians. The French Basque author Augustin Chaho published The Legend of Aitor, asserting that the common patriarch of the Basques was Aitor, a descendant of Tubal. (Wikipedia)

In his book The History of Basque, R.L. Trask mentions Andrés de Poza (ca. 1530-1595), a Bizkaian lawyer, who “argued that Basque had anciently been the language of the entire Iberian Peninsula, and that it had been one of the seventy-two [sic.] languages created by God at the Tower of Babel” (Routledge, London & New York, 1997, p. 50). Trask also states that far from being an undecipherable language, there are obvious and numerous Latin and Romance loan words to be found in Basque. He maintains that Hungarian, Finnish and Estonian are only superficially similar to Basque, but that, in his opinion, there is no evidence at all for a genetic link between Basque and any Caucasian language. Indeed, Basque is not related to the Uralic-Altaic language groups of which Hungarian and Finnish are part and which includes Turkic, Manchu-Tungus, Old Korean and Japanese.

In The Basques, Roger Collins discusses the so-called Vasco-Iberist theory and mentions in passing the possible North African connection referred to in the Human Biology journal above.

Basically this would imply that the Basques are the descendants of the Iberians, a significant if shadowy people, perhaps of north African origin, who occupied most of south and central Spain in the opening half of the first millennium BC, and who exercised substantial cultural and linguistic influence on the other main body of immigrant population, the Celts (Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1990, p. 9).

The credibility of the Vasco-Iberist theory has often been undermined, however. Trask offers an alternative when stating that “the evidence relating Basque to Aquitanian is very impressive, and probably all vasconists now accept that Basque is more or less directly descended from Aquitanian” (ibid., p. 411). Aquitaine was an ancient province located in south-west France.

As a means, perhaps, of unravelling the enigma of the Basques, there are numerous references to their genetic make-up, such as in the following extract from the Wikipedia entry entitled ‘Vascones’.

Genetic studies

Although they are genetically distinctive in some ways, the Basques are still very typically west European in terms of their Mt-DNA and Y-DNA sequences, and in terms of some other genetic loci. These same sequences are widespread throughout the western half of Europe, especially along the western fringe of the continent. The Saami people of northern Scandinavia show an especially high abundance of a Mt-DNA type found at 11% amongst Basques. Somewhat higher among neighbor Cantabrians, being the isolated Pasiegos with Mt-DNA V haplogroup of wider microsatellite variation than Saami.

It is thought that the Basque Country and neighbouring regions served as a refuge for palaeolithic humans during the last major glaciation when environments further north were too cold and dry for continuous habitation. When climate warmed into the present interglacial, populations would have rapidly spread north along the west European coast. Genetically, in terms of Y-chromosomes and Mt-DNA, inhabitants of Britain and Ireland are closely related to the Basques, reflecting their common origin in this refugial area. Basques, along with Irish, show the highest frequency of the Y-chromosome DNA haplogroup R1b in Western Europe; some 95% of native Basque men have this haplogroup. The rest is mainly I and a minimal presence of E3b.

The Y-chromosome and MtDNA relationship between Basques and people of Ireland and Wales is of equal ratios than to neighbouring areas of Spain, where similar ethnically "Spanish" people now live in close proximity to the Basques, although this genetic relationship is also very strong among Basques and other Spaniards. In fact, as Stephen Oppenheimer has stated in The Origins of the British (2006), although Basques have been more isolated than other Iberians, they are a population representative of south western Europe. …

Before the development of modern Genetics based on DNA sequencing, Basques were noted as having the highest global apportion of Rh- blood type (35% phenotypically, 60% genetically). Additionally Basques also have virtually no B blood type (nor the related AB group). These differences are thought to reflect their long history of isolation, along with times when the population size of the Basques was small, allowing gene frequencies to drift over time. The history of isolation reflected in gene frequencies has presumably been key to the Basque people retaining their distinctive language, while more recently arrived Indo-European languages swamped other indigenous languages that were previously spoken in western Europe. In fact, in accordance with other genetic studies, a recent genetic piece of research from 2007 claims: "The Spanish and Basque groups are the furthest away from other continental groups (with more diversity within the same genetic groups) which is consistent with the suggestions that the Iberian peninsula holds the most ancient West European genetic ancestry." [The Basque History of the World: The Story of a Nation, by Mark Kurlansky.]

Before DNA analysis, attempts were made to determine racial similarities by looking at blood groups. Using data from J. Altuna’s work, ‘La race basque’ in Être Basque (Toulouse, 1983), Collins gives the following results from examining specific peoples and their blood groups (ibid., pp. 4-5):

Tests have been used to show that a disproportionately high percentage of Basques have blood of group O: 55 per cent as opposed to 40 per cent of Spaniards and 43 per cent of Frenchmen. Similarly, it appears that the blood groups B and AB are proportionately even rarer amongst Basques than amongst their fellow western Europeans:

Blood group Basques Spaniards Frenchmen

B 3% 9% 10.5%

AB 1.5% 4.5% 4.5%

Another source gives the following information on more recent DNA testing:

5.2. mtDNA test programmes

A study of 92 unrelated individuals from Galicia, a relatively isolated European population at the westernmost continental edge in Spain, conducted by the University of Santiago de Compostela, found that the Galician population has a striking similarity to the Basque population. The results are compatible with the theory that humans spread across Europe during the Upper Paleolithic age from the Middle East.

Another study, in the Basque region of Spain conducted by the Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea in Bilbao, found evidence for a small population size in the post-Ice Age period. mtDNA sequences from four Basque prehistoric sites did not belong to haplogroup V, the haplogroup most closely associated with the area in modern times. The findings thus contradict one theory that explains the modern-day concentration in the Basque region as a result of migration from southwestern Europe, occurring approximately 10,000-15,000 years BP (before the present). (http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~allpoms/genetics3.html)

However, the timings are all based on extended evolutionary models, which are shown to be wrong.

The Wikipedia article, the ‘History of the Basque People’, continues:

A high concentration of Rh- (a typical European trait) among Basques, who have the highest level worldwide, had already been taken as suggestive of the antiquity and lack of admixture of the Basque genetic stock before the advent of modern genetics, which has confirmed this view. In the 1990s Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza published his findings according to which one of the main European autosomal components, PC 5, was shown to be a typically Basque trait believed to have receded owing to the migration of Eastern peoples during the Neolithic and Metal Ages.

Further genetic studies on Y chromosome DNA haplogroups and X chromosome microsatellites also seem to point to Basques being the most direct descendants from prehistoric Western Europeans. Having the highest percent of "Western European genes" but found also at high levels among neighbor populations, as they are also direct descendants of the same People. However, Mitochondrial DNA have cast some doubt over this theory.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Basque_people)

Britain and the Iberian connection

It is asserted that among the earliest settlers in Britain, who began to arrive ca. 1600 BCE, were the people known as Iberi, some of whom remained in the upper Ebro basin (in northern Spain) and became known later as the Basques. The Roman historian, Tacitus, wrote the following in about 98 CE:

“Who were the original inhabitants of Britain, whether they were indigenous or foreign, is as usual among barbarians, little known. Their physical characteristics are various, and from these conclusions may be drawn. The red hair and large limbs of the inhabitants of Caledonia point clearly to a German origin. The dark complexion of the Silures, their usually curly hair, and the fact that Spain is the opposite shore to them, are an evidence that Iberians of a former date crossed over and occupied these parts.”

In his History of the Britons, written in 858 CE, Nennius repeats the genealogy of the sons of Japheth, but adds that the Italic people were also descendants of Tubal.

… Japheth had seven sons; from the first, named Gomer, descended the Galli; from the second, Magog, the Scythi and Gothi; from the third, Madian, the Medi; from the fourth, Juvin, the Greeks; from the fifth, Tubal, arose the Hebrei, Hispani, and Itali; from the sixth, Mosoch, sprung the Cappadoces; and from the seventh, named Tiras, descended the Thraces: these are the sons of Japheth, the son of Noah, the son of Lamech (para. 18; trans. based on W. Gunn & J.A. Giles, 1848).

Extracts from the Wikipedia entry on the Celts provide the following information:

Oppenheimer's theory is that the modern day people of Wales, Ireland and Cornwall are mainly descended from Iberians who did not speak a Celtic language. In Origins of the British (2006), Stephen Oppenheimer states (pages 375 and 378):

By far the majority of male gene types in Britain and Ireland derive from Iberia (modern Spain and Portugal), ranging from a low of 59% in Fakenham, Norfolk to highs of 96% in Llangefni, north Wales and 93% Castlerea, Ireland. On average only 30% of gene types in England derive from north-west Europe. Even without dating the earlier waves of north-west European immigration, this invalidates the Anglo-Saxon wipeout theory...

...75-95% of Britain and Ireland (genetic) matches derive from Iberia...Ireland, coastal Wales, and central and west-coast Scotland are almost entirely made up from Iberian founders, while the rest of the non-English parts of Britain and Ireland have similarly high rates. England has rather lower rates of Iberian types with marked heterogeneity, but no English sample has less than 58% of Iberian samples. ... Oppenheimer challenges the idea that all of Britain spoke a Celtic language.

A connection is then made between some Celtic-speaking peoples and the mysterious Basques, as noted in a BBC News bulletin on Tuesday, 3 April, 2001.

Genes link Celts to Basques

The Welsh and Irish Celts have been found to be the genetic blood-brothers of Basques, scientists have revealed.

The gene patterns of the three races passed down through the male line are all "strikingly similar", researchers concluded.

Basques can trace their roots back to the Stone Age and are one of Europe's most distinct people, fiercely proud of their ancestry and traditions.

The research adds to previous studies, which have suggested a possible link between the Celts and Basques, dating back tens of thousands of years.

"The project started with our trying to assess whether the Vikings made an important genetic contribution to the population of Orkney," Professor David Goldstein of University College London (UCL) told BBC News.

'Statistically indistinguishable'

He and his colleagues looked at Y-chromosomes, passed from father to son, of Celtic and Norwegian populations. They found them to be quite different.

"But we also noticed that there's something quite striking about the Celtic populations, and that is that there's not a lot of genetic variation on the Y-chromosome," he said.

To try to work out where the Celtic population originally came from, the team from UCL, the University of Oxford and the University of California at Davis also looked at Basques.

"On the Y-chromosome the Celtic populations turn out to be statistically indistinguishable from the Basques," Professor Goldstein said. (emphasis added)

Pre-farming Europe

The comparison was made because Basques are thought by most experts to be very similar to the people who lived in Europe before the advent of farming.

"We conclude that both of these populations are reflecting pre-farming Europe," he said.

Professor Goldstein's team looked at the genetic profiles of 88 individuals from Anglesey, North Wales, 146 from Ireland with Irish Gaelic surnames, and 50 Basques.

"We know of no other study that provides direct evidence of a close relationship in the paternal heritage of the Basque- and the Celtic-speaking populations of Britain," the team write in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Viking TV

But it is still unclear whether the link is specific to the Celts and the Basques, or whether they are both simply the closest surviving relatives of the early population of Europe.

What is clear is that the Neolithic Celts took women from outside their community. When the scientists looked at female genetic patterns as well, they found evidence of genetic material from northern Europe.

This influence helped even out some of the genetic differences between the Celts and their Northern European neighbours.

The work was carried out in connection with a BBC television programme on the Vikings.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/1256894.stm

The Basque-Pictish connection

In a paper produced in 1891-2, Sir John Rhys attempted to prove a linguistic connection between Basque and Pictish, the language of the mysterious early occupiers of northern Britain. However, six years later he admitted that he had failed to do so, although he did not categorically rule out any relationship. A more recent but equally unsuccessful attempt was made by H. Guiter in La langue des Pictes (San Sebastian, 1968). In his book The Basques, Roger Collins writes:

The only partial exception to the linguistic isolation of Basque -- and this relates to the speech of a people who lost their separate identity about 1000 years ago -- might be made in respect of Pictish. … The present state of Pictish studies and the extremely limited nature of its evidence relevant to this enquiry makes it too frail to support a major role in the investigation of Basque origins. … The Pictish problem is, in this respect at least, identical to the Basque one: the genesis of the Picts in the prehistorical period is impossible to trace … (Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1990, pp. 11,15).

Another person to concur with this and yet who refused to rule out any connection at all between the two languages was one of the foremost Celtic scholars, K.H. Jackson.

There were at least two languages current in northern Scotland before the coming of the Irish Gaels in the fifth century. One of them was a Gallo-Brittonic dialect not identical with the British spoken south of the Antonine Wall, though related to it. The other was not Celtic at all, nor apparently even Indo-European, but was presumably the speech of some very early set of inhabitants of Scotland … One hesitates to mention the word Basque in this context, and there is not the slightest reason to suppose that it had any connexion with Basque whatsoever (unless through the Iberian element in the population mentioned by Stuart Piggott); but the parallel of that other ancient non-Indo-European language surviving in another corner of western Europe, and surviving moreover even to the present day, is very striking, and shows that the hypothesis of an analogous survival in Scotland down to the Dark Ages is by no means extravagant (The Problem of the Picts, ibid., p. 152).

In Collins’ book, Map 2 (p. 6) shows that, by examination of the blood-group variations (resembling isobars on a weather map) across Western Europe, there appeared to be a definite link between the peoples of the Basque region, Brittany, Ireland and northern Britain, a link that has been confirmed by the latest DNA research. By way of summary, the Wikipedia article on the Basques says:

Recent genetic studies have confirmed that about 75% of the people of the British Isles have bloodlines that can be traced to inhabitants of the Basque areas of Spain and France based on Y-chromosome and mtDNA analysis. The originators of these genes are thought to have traveled up the Atlantic Coast in the Upper Palaeolithic and the Mesolithic period.

A similar proportion of the remaining, Romance speaking, inhabitants of the whole Iberian peninsula (both Spain and Portugal) share similar percentages of haplogroup R1b to the people of Britain and Ireland as well as very similar mtDNA ancestry.

It must therefore be admitted that the sons of Tubal also entered Britain and Ireland and an element of Tubal’s descendants is thus found among the British. The red-haired, blue-eyed sons of Ashkenaz and Tiras and the curly-haired sons of the Silures were joined with the Anglo-Saxons, who assumed sovereignty over the earlier British of Gomer, and Magog and Tubal.

The Picts

These were among the original inhabitants of Scotland, but who remain as enigmatic today as they ever were – even more so than the Basques as they left no written records. The first mention of the Picts or Picti was by Eumenius in 297 CE, when they are shown to be distinct from the Caledones. It is recorded that from about 360 CE the Picti, along with the Saxones and Scotti (or Hiberni), began to attack the Roman province of Britain. To the Welsh the Picts were known as Gwyr y Gogledd, the men of the north.

One of the foremost experts on the Picts, F.T. Wainwright, wrote:

[In 1943] Dr W. Douglas Simpson, following T. Rice Holmes and others, neatly summarised modern opinion when he said that “Pict is a name without racial content”. Today philologists, archaeologists and historians, differing among themselves at many points, would probably all agree that the historical Picts were a heterogeneous people and that the antecedents of Pictland should not be sought in a single race or culture … [but] represent a number of racial and cultural groups which impinged or were superimposed on one another in the area we recognise as Pictland (The Problem of the Picts, ed. F.T. Wainwright, Melven Press, Perth, Scotland, 1980; 1^st publ. 1955, pp. 11-12)

Bede, in his History of the English Church and People (III, 4), made the distinction between northern and southern Picts, separated by “a range of steep and desolate mountains” (the Grampians, acc. to Bede’s translator). It has been suggested by Wainwright that he was misled by Ptolemy’s distinctly odd-shaped map of Britain, in which the northern part (the whole of ‘Scotland’) is skewed 90°, and that Bede’s ‘southern’ Picts were therefore actually located in the eastern part of the country, with the ‘northern’ Picts in the west. That there was a rough east-west divide has been confirmed somewhat from the location of names with a Pet(t)- or Pit- prefix found almost exclusively in the eastern half of Scotland between the Firth of Forth and south-east Sutherland. In addition, the reality of a Forth-Clyde southern boundary is confirmed by the distribution of symbol stones, which, incidentally, tended to be found in the most fertile areas of Pictland.

The Roman Ammianus Marcellinus previously noted that up to the 4^th century CE the Picts were divided into two distinct groups: the Dicalydones and the Verturiones. In Ptolemy’s map, the sea shown in the ‘north’ of Scotland and called Oceanus Deucaledonius would actually have been located to the west as well as possibly the north, and may thereby indicate where the tribe of Dicalydones was situated. Ptolemy also shows a tribal group called the Caledonii toward the centre of northern Britain. Presumably, the Verturiones, as a cover-all term for a number of tribes, would then have been the ones occupying the east and south-east of northern Britain.

F.T. Wainwright continues:

It is quite clear that the Picts were not a negligible factor in the northern political scene [in the 8^th century CE]. They possessed a fleet of considerable strength, which implies navigational skill, familiarity with difficult waters, and a knowledge of shipbuilding. They could dominate the Orkneys, they could defeat the Northumbrian army when it was near the peak of its military reputation, and they could hold the boundaries of their kingdom against other northern peoples (ibid., p. 25).

The Picts were also mentioned by the ‘Irish’ in the Annals of Ulster, Tigernach, Inisfallen and Clonmacnoise, with those of Ulster considered the most reliable. The so-called historical Pictish period was considered to be ca. 300-850 CE, although the Picts were in occupation of Scotland centuries or even millennia before that.

The major problem in suggesting that the Picts were connected to the Basques is that the Picts were said by Bede to have originated in Scythia. The confusion here is that the historian Jordanes or Jornandes used the term Scythia for Scandinavia rather than the area to the north of the Black Sea. However, there is strong evidence to show that the Scandinavians, and especially the Swedes, originally did in fact come out of Greater Scythia near the Black Sea.

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle of ca. 891 CE (transl. by James Ingram, 1823) reiterates the origin of the Picts and records their possession of an island to the east, possibly the Orkney Isles to which Nennius also referred.

Part 1: A.D. 1-748

The island Britain is 800 miles long, and 200 miles broad. And there are in the island five nations; English, Welsh (or British), Scottish, Pictish, and Latin. The first inhabitants were the Britons, who came from Armenia [allegedly Armorica/Brittany], and first peopled Britain southward. Then happened it, that the Picts came south from Scythia, with long ships, not many; and, landing first in the northern part of Ireland, they told the Scots that they must dwell there. But they would not give them leave; for the Scots told them that they could not all dwell there together; "But," said the Scots, "we can nevertheless give you advice. We know another island here to the east. There you may dwell, if you will; and whosoever withstandeth you, we will assist you, that you may gain it." Then went the Picts and entered this land northward. Southward the Britons possessed it, as we before said. And the Picts obtained wives of the Scots, on condition that they chose their kings always on the female side; which they have continued to do, so long since. And it happened, in the run of years, that some party of Scots went from Ireland into Britain, and acquired some portion of this land. Their leader was called Reoda, from whom they are named Dalreodi (or Dalreathians).

Matrilineal succession to the throne meant that Pictish kings often had foreign fathers, like much of European royalty down through the centuries.

The Greek geographer Pytheas, who sailed around the British Isles in 325 BCE, called them the Pretanic Isles after the inhabitants, who referred to themselves as Priteni or Prytaini/Prydaini; this was later changed to Britanni. The Latin version of this is Priteni; in Norse it is Pettr, in Old English Peohta, and Pecht in Old Scots, and from the latter it is said we get the word Pict. The Celts called the Picts Cruithni (pron. cree-nee). There were seven royal houses of the Prytani descended from the seven sons of a great Prytani king.

Virgil and Claudian called the Picts the Pictosque Gelones, and claimed they were a tribe of the Goths. Again there is a blurring of the distinction between these tribes, as both Strabo and Pliny said that the Getae or Goths were equivalent to or at least included the Dacians, who in turn were closely associated with the Thracians, sons of Tiras, son of Japheth. The Getae/Goths, however, were considered to be descendants of Magog, another son of Japheth. Thus we see that the Picts were of the Tirasian Magogite groups that also entered Scandinavia. These distinctions were also recorded among the Norsemen and the British and Irish referred to the Danes as the Black Norse and the Norwegians as the White Norse.

From the information recorded herein, we might conclude that the Western Thobelites of Spain were the sons of Tubal and they, with Magog and Gomer, constitute 75% of the British population, with the Anglo-Saxons and Norse comprising only a further 25%. However, just under 40% of the English are Haplogroup I Semites.

We now draw attention to the tribe of the Picts called the Hebrei with the Hispani and Itali. The tribes sprung from Tubal were assigned regions such as Hispania and Italia, but the Hebrei were not explicable in those terms. If, however, we assume Nennius was writing of the group of Hebrews that came with them from Armenia – which is where the Hebrews were placed after the captivity of the Lost Ten Tribes of Israel – we have a clear explanation of how the large section of Semitic Haplogroup I entered Britain. Some of this Haplogroup is not associated with the later invasions but some is. The word Amorica is a Latin form for coastlands, and Brittany got its name from the movement of Celtic Britons from Britain to Amorica after the Roman suppression. The movement was not in the reverse direction.

The smaller number of Anglo-Saxon blood lines are arrived at by excluding the Haplogroup I Semites and reducing the definition of the R1b sub group that is identified as Anglo-Saxon. There was nevertheless a significant influence of the Traders in Iberia from Tarshish

Tubal in prophecy

With regard to the prophetic scriptures concerning Tubal, the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (ISBE) states that:

As the text stands, Tubal and Meshech are always coupled, except in Isa 66:19 (Masoretic Text) and Ps 120:5. In the former passage Tubal is yoked with Javan; in the latter Meshech occurs in 120:5 and Kedar in 120:6. In Ezekiel (27:13) the two are mentioned as exporters of slaves and copper, as a warlike people of antiquity (32:26), in the army of Gog (38:2 ff; 39:1).

Gog, Magog, Gomer and Meshesh are often mentioned along with Tubal, and various Bible scholars have suggested that they represent a combined Asiatic force, which includes China, Russia and Mongolia.

Isaiah 66:19 and I will set a sign among them. And from them I will send survivors to the nations, to Tarshish, Put, and Lud, who draw the bow, to Tubal and Javan, to the coastlands afar off, that have not heard my fame or seen my glory; and they shall declare my glory among the nations.

Ezekiel 27:13 Javan, Tubal, and Meshech traded with you; they exchanged the persons of men and vessels of bronze for your merchandise.

Ezekiel 32:26 "Meshech and Tubal are there, and all their multitude, their graves round about them, all of them uncircumcised, slain by the sword; for they spread terror in the land of the living.

Ezekiel 38:2-3 “Son of man, set your face towards Gog, of the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal, and prophesy against him ³and say, Thus says the Lord GOD: Behold I am against you, O Gog, chief prince of Mesech and Tubal;

Ezekiel 39:1 "And you, son of man, prophesy against Gog, and say, Thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I am against you, O Gog, chief prince of Meshech and Tubal;

The great wars of the end involve both Gog of Magog and of Meshech and Tubal, and also the nations of Gomer. Tubal extends from its main elements in the Central Russian Steppes to sub-tribes in Spain and Italy and the British Isles. From there the entire New World of the Americas drew this mix of populace. These matters have been examined in the paper War of Hamon-Gog (No. 294).

The origin of the Khazars is found in Tubal, and a large number of Ashkenazi Jews are R1a Khazars and 52% of their Levites are Khazars, as we discussed in the papers Genetic Origin of the Nations (No. 265) and the Descendants of Abraham Part V: Judah (No. 212E).

Technically, it might be said that biblical Israel is occupied by a significant force of Tubal as well as a majority of other non-Jewish peoples at present.