The author of this article needs to develop more knowledge about genetic testing. Fascinating subject, hope to hear more.
Note that the Canary Islands are part of Spain, with full rights, just like any other region of Spain. It’s not “governed by Spain”. It’s not a colony.
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The Islands are not merely "governed by Spain" they are a part of Spain like Hawaii is part of the US.
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The islands were certainly visited by Phoenicians and their Carthaginian descendants, and also by their Berber neighbors and kin who allied with Rome. Since ancient times these people were visiting the Canary islands. It is odd to think of the indigenous population later being conquered by Europeans, since the mixing between of the peoples of Iberia (the conquerors) and North African had been going on for millennia with the "Europeans" and the "indigenous" people sharing roots that reach back to the Middle East. The person first to claim the Canaries was the son of a Berber prince and a Greek-descended Egyptian princess. For heavens sake, on a clear day you can see the tops of the Canary mountains from coast of Africa.
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A journalist embracing the idea that "Europeans" and "Romans" were a single ethnicity reveals much about the perspective of the journalist (and perhaps the researcher).
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Thank you for including the irrelevant and unnecessary comment that the natives of the Canaries, JUST AS the indigenous populations of North America (i..e., USA) were colonized by Europeans! Probably no one suspected that! However, I am glad that, after getting that colonial comment out of your system, you were able to focus on the genetic central aspect of the interesting findings by Spanish scientists... Leyenda negra, anybody?..
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@Francisco Pérez
Not sure it was unnecessary. One, they studied the bones of long dead people, a population not yet mixed with later arrivals. Also, sometimes colonization results in eradication, as in Cuba with natives. So, this helps a reader appreciate what the study really does find.
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@Francisco Pérez Every article these days has to be “woke”. God forbid he exclude it and someone gets upset about its exclusion.
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The Canary Islands are named for the dogs (Canariae Insulae) that were left behind when the aboriginal inhabitants deserted the area. The brightly-colored birds are named for the islands, not the other way around.
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fascinating but only part of the story- the matriarchal line, indicative of the more ancient population that lived there. Whole genome and Y chromosome analysis will reveal whether the entire early population was from same areas, or if an as yet unidentified influx of invader population came and left there mark. (pre European) There is a lot of info that shows conquering invading males left their imprint by mating with indigenous female, far outproducing the original male population.
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Very interesting to me personally. My mother's family came to Texas from the Canary Islands on the basis of Spanish land grants in the 1600's. My DNA was analyzed a few years ago and it definitely showed some North African in it, I don't remember the percentage offhand
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@Bill
The study by Rodriguez Varela et al., 2017 found between 16% and 31% of Guanche DNA in modern Canary Islanders. So the indigenous, Northwest African-derived population was not erased and their (mixed) descendants are still around.
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It should be noted that the days when this type of analysis was done meaningfully based on mitochondrial sequences only are long past. Much better insight has (and will) come from whole genome sequencing of aboriginal and current Canary islanders genomes (see Rodriguez Varela et al., 2017, 10.1016/j.cub.2017.09.059)
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