Question about Latin Americans?

Originally posted by pebbles   Is it fair to say moderd day Spaniards ( exclude Latino population in the Americas ) has close to 20% northern African genetic component,same percentage for Portuguese as well ?

I don't know, and nobody knows the exact percentage, and different studies have come up with different results: ranging from 3% to 30%.
The case is that the differentiation between North African and southern European genes is very complex. As far as prehistoric times populations had migrated and interbred across the Mediterranean. There's even a theory that the so-called "Iberians", the natives of southern and south-eastern Iberia, were of North African origin. Other sources suggest Middle-Eastern or native origin.
Again, there are other theories that North Africans owe a great deal of ancestry to southern Europeans who had "crossed the strait" at prehistoric times... nobody knows for sure.

What's important is that the Moors certainly did leave a great cultural impact in Spain and Portugal, especially in Andalusía where they founded one of the most advanced civlizations at the time. Spanish architecture owes a great deal to Moorish influence, and there are 4000-5000 Spanish words of Arabic origin.

The sad case is that Spain underwent an "Inquisition" that either expelled or forcibly converted the Muslims and Jews to Catholism; and Spanish society and politics over the recent centuries had been heavily controlled by the Catholic clergy.
Much of the Catholic clergy's propaganda was to "play down" the Islamic and Jewish heritage and impose Catholism as the one and only state religion.

Originally posted by pebbles ...   Is it fair to say moderd day Spaniards ( exclude Latino population in the Americas ) has close to 20% northern African genetic component,same percentage for Portuguese as well ?