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Origin of Ancient Canary Islanders Guanches: presence of Atlantic/Iberian HLA and Y chromosome genes and Ancient Iberian language


Antonio Arnaiz-Villena
Ester Muñiz
Cristina Campos
Eduardo Gomez-Casado
Sandra Tomasi
Narcisa Martínez-Quiles
Manuel Martín-Villa
Jose Palacio-Gruber

Abstract

First CanaryIslands(Spain) Inhabitants (“Guanches”) origin has been much debated. Lately, it has come popular the simplistic theory that they came from North Africa. In the present paper, we conclude that not only North Africans but also Iberian/Atlantic Europeans (and possibly others) must have been first Canarians. Debate whether North Africans or Iberians were the first “Guanches” is artificial since Iberian Peninsula-North African genes flow in ancient times was abundant and Iberians share a great part of genetic profile with North Africans. New genetic (HLA) and linguistic data shown in the present paper, is supported by diverse early anthropological and “Guanches” mummies characters which confirm existence of at least two “Guanches” types and a correct interpretation of R1b Y chromosome high frequency in Atlantic Europe (Ireland, British Isles, North Spain,Basque Coast and Portugal), and also, is present in Canary Islands (13.3%). Present paper HLA genes partial data and presence of abundant old Iberian language scripts (which show an easy translation proposal by using Basque) in Fuerteventura and also in Lanzarote and El Hierro Islands suggest that a present day dogma of a hypothetically North African single origin should be changed. Both Atlantic/Europeans and North Africans define origin of Canary Islands first inhabitants.

Keywords: Basque, Canary Islands, El Hierro, Fuerteventura, genes, genetic markers, Guanche, HLA, Iberian, Language, Lanzarote, Latin Inscriptions, R1b, R1b1b, Rock scripts, Usko-Mediterranean, Y chromosome.


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eISSN: 1737-8176
print ISSN: 1737-7374