New study preprint reveals that Saami people settled earlier much larger areas in Finland. The study doesn't give answer how far to the south they lived, but it looks like Saami settlements reached at least the coast of West Finland. The study discloses also several new samples from Kola Peninsula, oldest ones around 3500 years old. Two of those Kola samples belong to y-dna N-L392, representing oldest N1-samples so far. N-L392 is an upstream mutation for the largest Finnish group including Karelians and Savonians. It is possible that the whole North European N descends from populations that migrated following northeastern route from Siberia and have got the recent genetic shape due genetic bottle necks and assimilations. This would be a reasonable explanation until we have other evidences about more southern ancient N. This is however contradicting with the main stream linguistic theory of the Volga bend origin of Baltic-Finnic languages, assuming a straightforward connection between Finns and their language. One explanation could be that the language came following southern route and was brought toward Estonia by people carrying R1a.
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2018/03/22/285437.full.pdf
edit 25.3.18
A short quote from an Estonian newspaper referring to latest linguistic research:
Eesti Vabariigi aastapäevaks kolme teadusharu koostöös valminud uus seletus läänemeresoome rahvaste tekkest viitab ühe olulise väljarände keskmena Põhja-Eestile, kuhu olid jõudnud Volga äärest teele asunud, teel baltlastega segunenud ja Daugava kaudu praegusesse Eestisse jõudnud väljarändajad.
And here is the Google translation to English, with some syntax corrections:
A new explanation of the formation of Finno-Ugrian peoples, co-written by the three branches of science, points to the emergence of the most significant migration to North Estonia, emigrants embedded on the road from Volga, on their way to the Baltic, and migrated to the present-day Estonia via Daugava (Daugava is in Finnish Väinäjoki and in Estonia Väina jõgi, although Estonians usse also Latvian Daugava. The beginning "Väinä" (joki=river) can refer to the mythic Finnish hero Väinämöinen, who was the biggest character in the Finnish national epic. A map figuring Latvia during the Great Northern War around 1700CE, drawn using an original done by Swedish historians: http://www.pohjanprikaatinkilta.fi/PohPr/taistelut/riian%20ymparisto.jpg).
So the Finno-Ugric migration, later called Baltic-Finnic people, migrated via Daugava, which is a river in Latvia. How do we bring together two crucial observations, the N1-root in Kola Peninsula 3500 years ago and the migration way of Baltic-Finnic people from the Volga region via Latvia and Estonia to Finland, which also happened around 2000-3500 years ago?
https://heureka.postimees.ee/4390183/suur-lugu-postimees-esitleb-kolme-teadusharu-koostoos-sundis-uus-pilt-eestlaste-kujunemisest
What are your thoughts on the N1c found in the Estonian Tarand graves?
ReplyDeleteThese people came from the Volga so would they be a likely source of Balto-Finnic languages?
Thhey are mentioned in this article but have aDNA has yet to be published https://opetajateseminar.files.wordpress.com/2018/03/eestlaste-kujunemine-2018-tekst.pdf
I can't say much without more information about those remains. I sure want to have those samples in my data sets. In this case auDna is less interesting than detailed yDna information, because those tarand graves are young enough to be our ancestors. So, if those samples are well-preserved it would give pretty much information. Maybe it belongs to present-day Baltic lineages? If it is Baltic, it would lead to enormous debate of who was the first etc etc. So I keep my feet on firm ground before we see evidences :) I also want to remind that in Estonia R1a equal to N and all R1a can't be explained by Polish or Russian immigration and Estonian N has grown due to Finnish migration during heydays of the Swedish realm. So did N came from the Volga? In my opinion it is only a hypothesis colored by growing nationalism, which likes to find out explanations serving monocultural ideas in small countries, like Estonia and Finland. But we'll see and probably see also new puzzles. Btw, a new study sbout Estonian yDna will be soon released, including 1000 samples. I hope that they will produce enough data to make it possible to sort out Finnish, Baltic and Russian migrations.
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