Posted on 09/26/2007 10:49:43 AM PDT by blam
WHERE DO FINNS COME FROM?
Not long ago, cytogenetic experts stirred up a controversy with their "ground-breaking" findings on the origins of the Finnish and Sami peoples. Cytogenetics is by no means a new tool in bioanthropological research, however. As early as the 1960s and '70s, Finnish researchers made the significant discovery that one quarter of the Finns' genetic stock is Siberian, and three quarters is European in origin. The Samis, however, are of different genetic stock: a mixture of distinctly western, but also eastern elements. If we examine the genetic links between the peoples of Europe, the Samis form a separate group unto themselves, and other Uralic peoples, too have a distinctive genetic profile.
Bioanthropology: Tracing our genetic roots
We humans inherit the genetic material contained in the mitochondrion of our cell cytoplasm (mitochondrial DNA) from our mothers, as the DNA molecules in sperm appear to break down after fertilization. Since the 1980s, tests on mitochondrial DNA have enabled scientists to establish the biological links and origins of human populations by tracing their maternal lineage. DNA tests confirm that Homo sapiens originated in Africa roughly 150,000 years ago. From there modern man went forth and conquered new territory, eventually populating nearly all seven continents.
Another fact confirmed by DNA tests is that there is only minor genetic variation between the peoples of Europe, the Finns included. Mitochondrial DNA tests have revealed the presence of a 'western' component in the Finns' genetic makeup. Meanwhile, tests on the cell nucleus indicate that Finnish genes differ to some extent from those of other Europeans. This apparent contradiction stems from the fact that the genetic diversity evidenced by mitochondrial DNA is of much older origin - indeed tens of thousands of years older - than that of the cell nucleus, whose genetic time span goes back only a few thousand years.
The Riddle of the Samis
DNA research reveals that the genetic makeup of the Samis and Samoyeds differs significantly both from each other and from other Europeans. In the case of the Samoyeds, this is not surprising, since it was not until the early Middle Ages that they migrated to northeastern Europe from the outer reaches of Siberia. It is curious, however, that the mitochondrial DNA of the Samis should differ so distinctly from that of other European peoples. The "Sami motif" which has been identified by researchers - a combination of three specific genetic mutations - is shared by more than one third of all tested Samis, but of all the gene tests conducted throughout the world, the same mutation has occurred in only six other samples, one Finnish and five Karelian. This prompts the question as to whether the ascendants of the latter-day Samis have perhaps lived in genetic isolation at some stage in their evolution.
DNA scientists class the Finns as Indo-Europeans, or descendants of western genetic stock. But because "Indo-European" is a term borrowed from linguistics, it is misleading in the broader context of bioanthropology. DNA scientists work within a time frame of tens of thousands of years, whereas the evolution of Indo-European languages, as indeed of all European language groups, is confined to a much briefer time span. DNA scientists nevertheless postulate that the Finno-Ugric population absorbed an influx of migrating Indo-European farming communities ("Indo-European" both genetically and, by that stage, also in the language they spoke). The newcomers altered the original genetic makeup of the Finno-Ugric population, but nevertheless adopted their language. This, in a nutshell, explains the origin of the Finns, according to the DNA scientists. The Samis, however, are a much older population in the opinion of DNA scientists, and their origin has yet to be established conclusively.
Philology: Tracing our linguistic heritage
Language is one of the defining characteristics of an ethnic group. To a great extent, the ethnic identity of the Finns and the Samis can be defined on the basis of the language they speak. The Finns speak a Uralic language, as do the Samis, Estonians, the Mari, Ostyaks, Samoyeds and various other ethnic groups. Excluding the Hungarians, Uralic languages are spoken exclusively by peoples inhabiting the forest and tundra belt extending from Scandinavia to west Siberia. All the Uralic languages originate from a common proto-language, but down the centuries, they have branched off into separate offshoots. The precise origins and geographical range of Progo-Uralic nevertheless remains a point of academic contention.
Previously it was assumed that Proto-Uralic, or Proto-Finno-Ugric, originated from a narrowly confinded region of eastern Russia. Linguistic differentiation was believed to occur as these Proto-Uralic peoples migrated their separate ways. According to this theory, our early Finnish ancestors arrived on Finnish soil through a gradual process of westbound migration.
When the plausibility of this theory came under doubt, various others were posited. One such theory postulates that the origins of Proto-Uralic are in continental Europe. According to this theory, the linguistic evolution that gave rise to the Sami language occurred when European settlement spread to Fennoscandia. Our early Finnish ancestors became "Indo-Europeanized Samis" under the influence - demographic, cultural and linguistic - of the Baltic and Germanic peoples.
The "contact theory," again, suggests that the proto languages of the language families of today developed as a result of convergence caused by close interaction between speakers of originally different languages: the notion of a common linguistic birthplace thus goes against its premises. According to a recent variant of the contact theory, Proto-Uralic developed in this way among the peoples inhabiting the rim of the continental glacier extending from the Atlantic to the Urals, while Progo-Indo-European developed correspondingly further south. The Proto-Indo-European peoples later mastered the art of farming and gradually began to spread throughout various parts of Europe. In this process, Indo-European languages not only began to displace the Uralic languages, but also to significantly influence the evolution of those not yet displaced.
However many linguists support the notion that the Uralic languages have so many points in common in their basic structures - both in grammar and vocabulary - that these similarities cannot plausibly be attributed to interaction between unrelated language groups across such a broad geographical range. Rather we must presume that they share a common point of origin whence they derive their characteristic features and whence their geographical range began to expand: as it expanded, speakers of other languages who fell within its range presumably changed their original language in favor of Proto-Uralic. The same would apply to the Indo-European family of languages, too.
Archaeology reveals the age of ancient settlements Archaeological evidence confirms that Homo sapiens first settled in Europe between 40,000 and 35,000 BC. These early settlers presumably originated from common genetic stock. Genetic mutations like the "Sami motif" have indeed occurred down the centuries, but no other has had quite the same implications. It is of course conceivable that only the ancestors of the present-day Samis lived in a sufficient degree of genetic isolation for this chance mutation to survive.
Homo sapiens first arrived in Europe during a relatively warm spell in the Weichsel Glacial Stage. Between 20,000 and 16,000 BC a period of extreme cold forced settlers back southwards. Central Europe became depopulated, as did the region of the Oka and Kama rivers. After this cold peak, the climate grew milder, but with occasional intervening periods of harsh cold. Gradually people began returning to the regions they had abandoned thousands of years before. Meanwhile, the ice cap progressively withdrew northwards, opening up new territory for settlement. The Ice Age came to an end with a phase of rapid climate change around 9500 BC. Scientists estimate that the average yearly temperature may have risen by as many as seven degrees within a few decades. What remained of the continental glacier vanished within another thousand years.
Radical environmental changes followed from the warming of the climate. The tundras that once fringed the glacier now became forest, and elk appeared in the place of the wild reindeer that formerly roamed the rim of the glacier. The transition from the Palaeolithic period (Early Stone Age) to the Mesolithic period (Middle Stone Age) around 8000 BC was a phase marked by man's endeavors to adapt to the many changes occurring in his environment. This was the period when the Uralic peoples settled in the regions of northern Europe in which we find them today.
Scandinavia settled by continental Europeans
A substantial proportion of the world's water was tied up in the continental glaciers during the Ice Age. As the sea level was much lower than it is today, expansive tracts of land which now lie underwater were once the site of coastal settlements. The North Sea Continent between England and Denmark is a case in point: underwater finds prove that this region was the site of human settlements in the late stages of the Ice Age.
Norwegian archaeologists believe that the first pioneering settlers to leave the North Sea Continent were sea-fishing communities which advanced rapidly along the Norwegian coastline to Finnmark and the Rybachy Peninsula around 9000 BC at the latest. Many archaeologists formerly believed that the earliest settlers on the Finnmark coastline, who represented the Komsa culture, migrated there from Finland, east Europe or Siberia. More recent archaeological evidence does not support this theory, however.
The pioneers who settled on the coast of Norway appear to have gradually advanced inland toward north Sweden, and presumably also to the northernmost reaches of Finnish Lapland. Around 6000 BC, a second wave of migrants from Germany and Denmark worked northward via Sweden eventually, too, reaching northern Lapland. The Norwegian coastline remained populated by its founding settlers, but the founding population of north Scandinavia was a melting pot of two different peoples. Does the fact that the "Sami motif" confines itself to a particular region of nrothern Scandinavia then suggest that the mutation occurred not before, but after, northern Scandinavia became populated?
Grave findings have shown that late Palaeolithic settlers in central Europe and their Mesolithic descendants in the Scandinavian Peninsula were Europoids, who had compartively large teeth - a seemingly comical detail, but nevertheless an important factor in identifying these populations. Although it is very unlikely that the language of these settlers will ever be identified, I cannot see any grounds for the theory that either of these groups spoke Proto-Uralic.
Eastern Europe: a melting pot
If we now turn to the early settlements of northeastern Europe, their history is more complicated than that of Scandinavia, as the peoples who settled there appear to have migrated from several different directions.
The Palaeolithic peoples of southern Russia originally inhabited the steppes, but as the Ice Age drew near its end, the easternmost steppes became arid. Central Russia meanwhile became richly forested, providing a more hospitable living environment than the parched
steppes. The Palaeolithic settlements of the river Don evidently died out when their communities migrated to the region of the rivers Oka and Kama. The archaeological remains of late Palaeolithic pioneer settlements in central Russia nevertheless provide only indirect circumstantial evidence rather than any hard proof of this theory.
At the end of the Ice Age, the eastern parts of southern Russia were sparsely populated wasteland, but in the west, in the region of the River Dneper, a Palaeolithic culture flourished. From there, settlers migrated to the forest belt of central Russia. As the late Palaeolithic peoples of Poland, Lithuania and west Belarus adapted to forestation, they too commenced migrating to central Russia. At the beginning of the Mesolithic period, peoples of three different origins appear to have competed for a livelihood within the same region of central Russia.
As the northern conifer forests (or taiga belt) spread northward, this melting pot of settlers followed, eventually attaining a latitude of 65 around 7000 BC. After that, they began to populate the northernmost fringes of Europe. On the North Cap of Fennoscandia, a 'frontier' appears to have stood between the peoples who migrated north via Scandinavia and those who migrated via Finland and Karelia. Russian archaeologists in turn see no evidence of Palaeolithic or Mesolithic westward migration from Siberia.
Two different types of skull, Europoid and Mongoloid, have been discovered in excavated Mesolithic grave sites in northeast Europe. The two skull types have been cited as evidence for the theory that an early group of settlers migrated to Europe from Siberia. The 'Siberian' element found in Finnish genes is believed to furnish further evidence to back up this claim, but the theory is rendered doubtful by the fact that there is a lack of corroborating archaeological evidence.
According to more recent theories, the two types of skull found in Mesolithic graves do not suggest the presence of two different populations as was formerly believed, but rather they indicate a wide degree of genetic variation within one and the same population. All in all, the peoples of the northeast were very different from those of the west. The decisive difference is in the teeth.
East Europeans have small teeth compared with the relatively large teeth of the Scandinavian, a peculiarity deriving from an age-old genetic distinction. Ancient skulls tell usthat the early settlers of east Europe were mostly descendants of an ancient east European population which lived in prolonged isolation from the Scandinavians. Perhaps the "Siberian" element in Finnish genes is, in fact, east European in origin?
The Samis, too, have comparatively small teeth, which has been cited as evidence that they are descendants of the small-toothed Mesolithic population of east Europe. Archaeological findings and genetic evidence nevertheless fail to back up this theory. Have the small teeth of the Samis evolved in isolation, or are they a later genetic trait? If we take the latter alternative, we should perhaps consider the contributing role of those settlers who migrated to the Sami region from the northern parts of Finland and east Karelia. There is archaeological evidence of such northbound migration from the Bronze Age and the early Iron Age.
Proto-Uralic stems from eastern Europe?
How, then, are we to explain the fact that Finnish belongs to the Uralic group of languages? I believe that the evolution of Europe's modern languages began in the Palaeolithic period during a phase of adaptation to the socio-economic changes brought by the end of the Ice Age. My theory is that Proto-Uralic has its roots in eastern Europe, where, after a period of expansion following the Ice Age, it became the common language of a particular east European population, eventually replacing all other languages appearing in that region.
When settlement began in earnest, Mesolithic cultures sprang up between the Baltic Sea and the Urals, where Proto-Uralic, too, began to branch out into its various offshoots. In my opinion, archaeological evidence of later movements and waves of influence suggests that the linguistic evolution of Uralic languages did not follow the classic "family tree" model: "family bush," as suggested by linguists, would be a more appropriate metaphor.
North Finland's early settlements were established by a founding population of east Europeans who migrated as far north as the Arctic Circle. Early Proto-Finnish - the "grandmother language" of the Finnic and Sami languages - traces back to the period in which the "Comb Ceramic" culture spread throughout the region around 4000 BC. Proto-Sami and Proto-Finnic parted ways when the "Battle-Axe or Corded Ware culture" arrived in southwest Finland around 3000 BC. This linguistic differentiation continued during the Bronze Age in about 1500 BC, when the Scandinavians began to exert a tangible influence on the region and its language, which explains the appearance of the Proto-Baltic and Proto-German loan words, for example.
From here began the evolution of Proto-Finnic and, further, the differentiation of the Finnic languages. The linguistic evolution leading to the genesis of Proto-Sami occurred in the eastern, northern and inland regions of Finland, where the Baltic and German influence was weak, but the east European influence was comparatively strong. As a commonly spoken language and a language of trade, Proto-Sami spread from the Kola Peninsula as far as Jämtland in the wake of late Iron and Bronze Age migrations.
I believe, then, that the peoples inhabiting Norrland and the North Cap changed their original language - whatever it may have been - in favor of Proto-Sami in the Bronze Age. The present-day Samis thus stem from a different genetic stock and a largely different cultural background than the original "Proto-Samis" who later became integrated with the rest of the Finnish population. Our early Finnish ancestors did not change their language, but they changed their identity as they evolved from hunters and trappers into farmers in the "corded ware" period and under the influence of the Scandinavian Bronze Age.
By Christian Carpelan, a licentiate in archaeology and a researcher at the Univeristy of Helsinki. From Finnish Features, published by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Department of Press and Culture.
I figured Finland, but maybe that’s too obvious? :-)
Well, one has to wonder what came first, the chicken or the egg.
Since this part of Europe was overrun by all sorts
of invaders...Romans, Turks, even the French, I can understand how pockets of ethnicity and language might have developed.
I should correct my statement about Karelo-Finish being closest to Hungarian.
I recall it being said that Hungarian was second only to Karelo-Finish in the difficulty of learning the language.
In Swedish and Finnish universities, Licentiate's degree equals completion of the coursework required for a doctorate and a dissertation formally equivalent to half of a doctoral dissertation, likened to a MPhil degree in the British system.
The licentiate is particularly popular with students already involved in the working life, such that completing a full doctor's dissertation while working would be too difficult. The Licentiate's degree is called a filosofie licentiat in Swedish and filosofian lisensiaatti in Finnish (Licentiate of Philosophy), teologie licentiat and teologian lisensiaatti (Licentiate of Theology) etc, depending on the faculty.
Furthermore, the requisite degree for a physician's license is lisensiaatti; there is no Master's degree. (The degree lääketieteen tohtori "Doctor of Medicine" is a traditional "professors degree", or a research doctorate, with Licentiate as a prerequisite.)
If we don't, y'all gonna finish us off?
It is possible and very likely people of different or mixed race abandon their own language and speak whatever the language of the area. I find it is fascinating that America, England, and Australia common language is English but their accent is totally different. The tone came about just 200-300 hundred years. The American and Australian accent did not exist before that.
Another example: It it like the people of North Eastern Thailand. The people there are Lao of Isan (30 million of them). They are not the same or speak same language as the people of central Thais or Bangkok Thais. Just across the Mekong river is the country Laos PDR (6 million people). They and Isan people speak the same language. But Lao of Isan have some Thai accent and use many Thai words as well.
The Magyars settled in their present-day homeland in A.D. 896.
From Sawbucks!
You get two Finns from a Sawbuck.
Project Background:
The Saami's genetic distinctiveness from other European populations have made them some of the most genetically mapped indigenous populations and they are NOT as believed in classical theories and popular myth of Siberian and Asian origin, but are genetically Europeans.
Their genetics shows signs of strong foundereffects and genetic drift due to their isolation and small non-expanding population. The Saami mtDNA and Y-chromosomal are totally dominated by the maternal hg V and U5b1b1, and the paternal hg I1a and N3a.
Today the Saami culture as seen in language is quickly dimishing and is only alive in some remote locations in the far north. In recorded history the Saami culture where found almost all over Fenoscandia influencing the early Nordic and Finnish cultures in the south.
This projects goal is to gather genetic data found within the Saami areas as well as genetic footprint outside these areas combining it with geneological depth. You may join if a) your a Saami b) suspect your Saami from family oral or written history c) DNA result strongly suggest your your direct father or mother line was a Saami.
The suggested immigration route for Saami Y-DNA and mtDNA haplogroups:
Speaking of the Hungarians, the most common expression for the Germans in WW1 and 2 used by the British, Churchill, etc., was “Huns.” Where did that come from anybody know? Germans aren’t Hungarians or descendants of Attila the Hun. At least that I’m aware of.
About the Finlanders. They win my admiration for their great stand against Russia in WW2. They fought them to a standstill in the snow, and won...for a while, until Russia eventually defeated them by overwhelming numbers. Great fighters, the Finns.
All I can figure out is they left without women and acquired the greater part of their genetic background by purchasing/stealing brides ~ this is much like what the ancient Greeks and Trojans seem to have thought women useful for ~ slavery and trade goods (just in case anybody says "it's just not probable for the Huns to have captured brides".
Of course it's "probable".
In doing whatever it was they were doing the Huns even lost their original Chinese language and picked up a creole of vaguely Indo-European and Uralic-Altaic origin.
Because the Huns did this within the scope of history we are able to ascertain how "culture" can be transmitted from generation to generation without respect to the nations of origin, or the race of the participants.
Churchill is the guy who is responsible for calling the Germans "Huns" ~ he did it as an insult.
The Germans thought it quite inspirational.
Adam, Eve and mitochondrial DNA
M. Ismail Sloan
Hamdan Street
PO Box 5243
Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
Tel: 011-9712-826311
March 19, 1988
Bill Christophersen
Newsweek Magazine
444 Madison Avenue
New York NY 10022
USA
Dear Mr. Christophersen,
Thank you so much for your detailed response, dated February 2nd, to my letter of January 11th regarding your cover story about the “Eve hypothesis” in Newsweek Magazine of the same date.
If you assume that at some point in human history there were 256,000 women in the world (as convenient a number as any), and that each one of these women had different mitochondrial DNA (which is passed on only by female offspring), and that each woman produced exactly two surviving children, and that 50% of all surviving children were female and that this continued for at least several thousand years, we see the following:
After one generation, 25% (or 64,000) of the mitochondrial DNAs have become extinct because those mothers produced two sons; 25 % (or 64,000) have two surviving examples (two daughters) and 50% have one surviving example (one daughter and one son).
After the second generation, 25% of those 64,000 which had two examples also produced two daughters, so now there are 4,000 (25% times 25% times 64,000) types of mitochondrial DNA with four examples each. There are also 16,000 DNAs with three examples each, 24,000 plus 32,000 (56,000) with two examples each, 16,000 plus 64,000 (80,000) with one example each and 4,000 plus 32,000 (36,000) more which have become extinct.
I hope you are able to follow what I just said. It comes from high school algebra, where (x + y) squared = x squared + 2xy + y squared and (x + y ) 4th = x (4) + 4x(3)y + 6x(2)y(2) +4xy(3) + y(4) and so on.
Thus, it can be seen that after only two generations, 100,000 varieties of mitochondrial DNAs have already become extinct, 64,000 in the first generation and 36,000 in the second generation.
After the third generation, there will be only 15.625 types of DNA with eight examples each (25% times 25% times 25% times 25% times 4,000), 500 with seven examples each and so on, while 15.625 + 250 + 3,500 + 20,000 = 23,765.625 more types will have become extinct.
As noted above, after just three generations, nearly half of the different types of DNA have become extinct. Therefore, three generations might be thought of as a “half-life” of a variety of mitochondrial DNA. (I realize that this is not exactly right). Since 2 to the 18th power equals 262,144, it might take only 54 generations (18 times 3) for 252,144 types of DNA to be reduced to just one.
In real life, of course, every woman does not have exactly two children. In some underdeveloped countries where I have been, there is still no birth control and no doctors. In such places, 10% to 20% of all women die in childbirth even in this modern age (usually while giving birth to the first child), while a tiny percentage of women give birth to ten or more children. Applying such more realistic data and assuming a high percentage of women dying in childbirth in pre-historic times, while the overall population still remain stable, it will be seen that the rate of reduction of the number of different types of mitochondrial DNA is even more rapid.
Now, you say in the article that the existence of only one type of mitochondrial DNA shows that there was “little or no mixing”. I, however, believe that this shows exactly the opposite. Consider the country of Iceland, which was settled starting in 874 AD and which, after the initial settlement period, has had virtually no immigration. If you ask around, you will find that any two given Icelandic persons will be able to find one common ancestor just a few generations back. One reason for this is that the Icelanders discovered free sex hundreds of years before it became popular in other countries. Traditionally, the vast majority of women in Iceland have their first child prior to getting married, and then get married to a man other than the father of their first child. As a result, because of this mixing, Iceland has perhaps the most homogeneous population of any country in the world.
If there were no mixing, there would still be isolated pockets in the world with different types of mitochondrial DNA. Only with free mixing would these pockets disappear.
Going back to the initial mathematics, I think that it would not be too difficult to write a computer program to show how long it would take for all but one type of mitochondrial DNA to become extinct. My rough guess, however, is that it would take just about exactly 200,000 years.. Therefore, I conclude that your expert’s discovery that all mitochondrial DNA still in existence are derived from just one original example which existed 200,000 years ago, tells us exactly nothing about the origins and history of the human race, except that the human race must be at least 200,000 years old (which we know already).
Very Truly Yours,
M. Ismail Sloan
One such gene is for Celiac Disease ~ and the other such gene has to do with how the liver processes heme. There are 86 variations, with 85 of them having an Arctic origin.
A number of Swedish businessmen have told me that every project team or work group in Sweden must include at least one Finn - otherwise everyone else would fall asleep.
Negotiating with them certainly seemed to support that theory - I'll trade four Swedes and your choice of Swiss for a single Finn.
(Price reduced from seven to four and no one who'd actually experienced the Swiss would want even one - so that part of the deal is just decoration.)
My interest was piqued when I had my DNA analysed and realized that my mtDNA is haplogroup 'V' which is the same as 68.4% of the Norrbotten Sa'ami and 52% of the Skolt Sa'ami. I have Sa'ami mtDNA (mother) and Irish (R1b) yDNA (dad).
The Sa'ami connection was a total suprise to everyone in my family.
I just got the results of my dad's mothers DNA and she has mtDNA U5a1a which is spread about equally between Scotland and Finland and I read today that it probably spread across this region when Scotland was still connected to the European continent...before the end of the Ice Age.
Overall, the highest mtDNA amoung the Sa'ami is mtDNA U5b1 -- yDNA I1a and is referred to as the 'Sa'ami Motif'.
Also interesting...9,000 year old Cheddar Man is mtDNA U5a and related to my dad's mother.
####East Europeans have small teeth compared with the relatively large teeth of the Scandinavian####
They must never have heard of Count Dracula of Transylvania.
Finnish was J.R.R.Tolkien’s favorite language. I’ve read in more than one place that he based some Elvish on Finnish, but I believe Welsh also entered in on the creation.
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