Portuguese Diaspora - Ancestry - Historical Origins

Historical Origins

Further information: Genetic history of Europe

The Portuguese are a Southwestern European population, with origins predominantly from Atlantic Europe, Western Europe and the Western Mediterranean. At foundation, the Portuguese, like other population groups from the western and central regions of the Iberian Peninsula, are an Atlantic Celtic people who have been very substantially "Romanized" over time.

The earliest modern humans inhabiting Portugal are believed to have been Paleolithic peoples that may have arrived in the Iberian Peninsula as early as 35,000 to 40,000 years ago. Current interpretation of Y-chromosome and mtDNA data suggests that modern-day Portuguese trace a significant amount of these lineages to the paleolithic peoples who began settling the European continent between the end of the last glaciation around 45,000 years ago.

Northern Iberia is believed to have been a major Ice-age refuge from which Paleolithic humans later colonized Europe. Migrations from what is now Northern Iberia during the Paleolithic and Mesolithic, links modern Iberians to the populations of much of Western Europe and particularly the British Isles and Atlantic Europe. Recent books published by geneticists Bryan Sykes, Stephen Oppenheimer and Spencer Wells have argued the large Paleolithic and Mesolithic Iberian influence in the modern day Irish, Welsh and Scottish gene-pool as well as parts of the English. Indeed, Y-chromosome haplogroup R1b (of Paleolithic origin) is the most common haplogroup in practically all of the Iberian peninsula and western Europe. Within the R1b haplogroup there are modal haplotypes. One of the best-characterized of these haplotypes is the Atlantic Modal Haplotype (AMH). This haplotype reaches the highest frequencies in the Iberian Peninsula and in the British Isles. In Portugal it reckons generally 60% in the South summing 80% northwards, and in some regions 90%.

The Neolithic colonization of Europe from Western Asia and the Middle East beginning around 10,000 years ago reached Iberia, as most of the rest of the continent although, according to the demic diffusion model, its impact was most in the southern and eastern regions of the European continent.

Starting in the 3rd millennium BC as well as in the Bronze Age, the first wave of migrations into Iberia of speakers of Indo-European languages occurred. These were later (7th and 5th Centuries BC) followed by others that can be identified as Celts.

Eventually, urban cultures developed in southern Iberia, such as Tartessos, influenced by the Phoenician colonization of coastal Mediterranean Iberia, with strong competition from the Greek colonization.

These two processes defined Iberia's, and Portugal's, cultural landscape - Mediterranean towards the southeast and a Continental in the northwest, as historian José Mattoso describes it. Given the origins from Paleolithic and Neolithic settlers as well as Indo-European migrations, one can say that the Portuguese ethnic origin is mainly a mixture of pre-Roman Pre-Indo-Europeans (such as, in other parts of Iberia, the Iberians, Tartessians and Aquitanians), Pre-Celtic, Proto-Celtic and Celtic peoples, producing peoples such as the Lusitanians of Lusitania, the Calaicians or Gallaeci of Gallaecia, the Celtici and the Cynetes of the Alentejo and the Algarve.

The Romans were also an important influence on Portuguese culture, from which Catholic Religion, and Portuguese language itself derives from, Latin.

Other minor influences included the Phoenicians/Carthaginians (small semi-permanent commercial coastal establishments in the south before 200 BC), the Vandals (Silingi and Hasdingi) and the Sarmatian Alans (both migrated to North Africa, while some were partially integrated by the Visigoths and Suebi), and the Visigoths and Suebi (including the Buri, permanently established in the early 5th century), Saqaliba (people of Slavic origin), who also settled in what is today Portuguese territory.

The ancestry of modern Portuguese has been influenced by the many people which have passed on its territory throughout history. Overall, these people include the Pre-Roman People of the Iberian Peninsula (such as the Lusitanians, Calaicians, Celtici, Cynetes and other minor local tribes as the Bracari, Coelerni, Equaesi, Grovii, Interamici, Leuni, Luanqui, Limici, Narbasi, Nemetati, Paesuri, Quaquerni, Seurbi, Tamagani, Tapoli, Turduli, Turduli Veteres, Turdulorum Oppida, Turodi and Zoelae), and probably for some cases Romans, Vandals, Suebi and Buri, Visigoths, Vikings, Alans and Saqaliba.

Most Berber/Arab Muslim, native Portuguese (Iberian) Muslims, and Jews were expelled from the Iberian Peninsula during the Reconquista, by the repression of persecutions of the Inquisition and the re-population of Christians, with many crusaders settling in Portugal. Settlers also came from Burgundy and Flanders, settling in mainland Portugal and later in the archipelagos of Azores and Madeira (Descobrimentos).

For the Y-chromosome and MtDNA lineages of the Portuguese and other peoples see this map and this one.

According to studies, more than 55% of the Portuguese population is straight descendant of Celts.

Portuguese people have also maintained a certain degree of cultural and ethnic-specific characteristics ratio with the Basques, since ancient times. The results of the present HLA study in Portuguese populations show that they have features in common with Basques and Spaniards from Madrid: a high frequency of the HLA-haplotypes A29-B44-DR7 (ancient western Europeans) and A1-B8-DR3 are found as common characteristics. Portuguese and Basques do not show the Mediterranean A33-B14-DR1 haplotype, suggesting a lower admixture with Mediterraneans. The Portuguese have a characteristic unique among world populations: a high frequency of HLA-A25-B18-DR15 and A26-B38-DR13, which may reflect a still detectable founder effect coming from ancient Portuguese, i.e., Oestrimnios and Conios.