The Basques inhabit a small, mountainous corner of southwestern France and northern Spain--an area which includes a portion of the western Pyrenees and the lowlands along the Cantabrian Sea. The Basques have long been regarded as the mystery people of Europe. They are both racially and linguistically distinct from neighboring European populations and scholars are still unable to explain when or how they came to occupy their present homeland. The evidence for Basque racial uniqueness is based upon their distinct physical type and their unusual blood-type frequencies (vis-a-vis other European peoples). Spoken Basque, despite centuries of ...