HEIDELBERG, Germany -- New research has revealed that the history of European peoples dates back much further than was previously believed, to the Basque country in northern Spain and south-western France, DPA reported.

Experts in prehistory had thought that the majority of modern Europeans were descended from migrants who arrived on the Continent after the last Ice Age (10,000 years ago), but research published in the May edition of the German science magazine **** Spektrum der Wissenschaft **** indicates otherwise.

According to genetics-based studies presented by Dr. Peter Forster of Cambridge University's McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, at least three quarters of all Europeans can be traced back at least 20,000 years, to well before the Ice Age.

Analysis of genetic diversity in mitochondrial DNA -- passed on exclusively through the female line -- indicated that Basques share their origins with other Europeans.

Until now, Basques were believed to be descendents of a peripheral people which retreated to the Pyrenees before more powerful European immigrants. Basque is not related to other European languages.

It was thought that most Europeans were descended from migrants speaking an Indo-European language who arrived from Central Asia and the Near East and flourished after the discovery of agriculture some 7,000 years ago.