I wrote a post [1] on this topic in 2018. There are new papers from 2019 that throw more light on the issue. The first one is by Lehti Saag et al [2]. It shows that Y-haplogroup N1c arrived to Estonia and Ingria during the change from Baltic Bronze Age to the Iron Age, that is, between 1000-500 BC. The second paper is by Sanni Översti et al [3]. It shows that skeletons in Levänluhta, Finland from Roman Iron Age (0-500 AD) have autosomal DNA, which has about as much Siberian admixture as present day Saami. The paper observes that DNA samples from Bolshoy, Russia, from around 1600 BC, have more Siberian admixture and possess the Y-haplogroup N1c1-L1026 (I will use the short names, like N-L1026 in [4]).
These results seem to have caused some confusion in many internet commenters, see e.g. [1]. A typical misunderstanding is that these ancient DNA analysis show that N1c arrived to Europe in 1600 BC, that Saami got their N1c from the Bolshoy population, and that in general, Finns and Saami are not quite European due to the Siberian admixture in all Fenno-Uralic speakers with the exception of Hungarians.
In reality these papers do not show anything of this kind and they are not in any way in contradiction with what was known in March 2018 (or long before). Instead, these papers fill in valuable details in the explanation where from Finns and Saami are.
A relatively good (though not academic) recent book on archeological findings in Finland is [5]. Though it only focuses on Vantaa, Finland, it basically summarizes in an easy way the level of knowledge on this topic by 2008, and in this sense updates the information in [6], written in 1990. I know there are other and maybe better sources, but as I lived 20 years in Vantaa very close to the largest excavation site in Finland (Jönsaks, Myyrmȁki, Vantaa, Finland), I kind of like this particular book. Naturally it is in Finnish, but assuming you are interested in the origins of Finns and Saami, it is very likely that you know Finnish.
Modern people have lived in Finland since 8800-8600 BC. The culture was post-Swiderian and most likely derived form the Kunda culture in Estonia. The Kunda (and Narva) culture people had Y-haplogroup I2a, mt-DNA U4 or U5a or U5b and were typical Western Hunter gathers (WHG), see [7] for DNA-analyses. Thus, the first inhabitants of Finland had the same characteristics. Ceramics arrived to Finland from the East about 5200 BC. It was Comb Ceramics and must have come from cultures such as the Koma culture in Russia. This culture is in Volga-Oka area, which is later known as Fenno-Ugric. Comb Ceramics started in the Far East, in the area just above North Korea, in about 6000 BC. There is a strong connection between the Comb Ceramics culture and Fenno-Ugric speakers, so that earlier it was believed that the expansion of Comb Ceramics and Fenno-Ugric people was the same phenomenon. This is no longer assumed, but the connection is there. There is a good justification in assuming that the WHG inhabitants of Finland got Comb Ceramics from Fenno-Ugrians living in the Volga-Oka area.
Also Baltic countries got Comb Ceramics from the same source. We know from Baltic DNA-samples that they did not get Y-haplogroup N1c from these contacts. Indeed, pre-CWC Y-haplogroups in Baltic countries included only I, and some R1b and some R1a. In Baltic countries the arrival of CWC around 3000 BC caused a major shift in Y-haplogroups to R1a. There was no major shift in autosomal DNA, thus in the Baltic countries the arriving CWC people replaced native men. This suggests that the incomers bred with native women. The men either were replaced as they were at that time hunter-gatherers, while the incomers were farmers, or the CWC men killed the native men. The latter is very possible concerning CWC, culture also known as the Battle Axe Culture.
But what happened in Finland is a different story. Firstly, the era of Comb Ceramics in Finland must be divided into several phases, and it did not end to the arrival of Corded Ware people. The first phase, called early Comb Ceramics, was around 5200-4500 BC. At this time we may assume that the native WHG people of Finland did not get new genes or change languages – as it was in the Baltic countries. In the next stage, 4500-4000 BC, called typical Comb Ceramics, however, it looks like new comers arrived. At this time there were long range trade connections both to the Baltic people (from where came is amber to Finland) and especially to the East (from there came flint stone and green stone of Ȁȁninen for tools). People in Finland needed these connections to the East because there is no flint stone in Finland (and quartz is a much worse material), the Baltic people had their own flint stone. Thus, the connections from Russia to Finland must have been much stronger than from Russia to Estonia.
Furthermore, grave goods during typical Comb Ceramics in Finland are very rich. There were rich and poor people. This indicates a social hierarchy. What I think this indicates is that there came traders from Volga-Oka area to Finland. They spoke a Fenno-Ugric language, as that area was where those languages were spoken. These traders become rich with trade and they married local women. They did not learn all native languages. There had to be many native languages among the WHG people, because this is the rule with hunter-gatherers living in small groups: there were hundreds of small languages in North America before Europeans came there. The same was in Australia. The same is everywhere. Thus, in order to have working trade networks, there is needed a common language, lingua franca (Kalevi Wiik was not wrong in this). In this situation the lingua franca would have been the language of the more advanced culture: that of the Volga-Oka area, as English was the lingua franca for Europeans dealing with aborigines. Thus, what happened in the era of typical Comb Ceramics in Finland most probably was that the WGH population got a small upper class of traders speaking a Fenno-Ugric language, having Y-haplogroup N1c, and being admixed with WHG. Most of the population had Y-haplogroup I2a and spoke their own native language in their own small groups.
After typical Comb Ceramics happened something. Trade networks stopped working. I assume that Indo-Europeans expanded in Russia and disconnected the trade routes from Finland to the Volga-Oka area. One such Indo-European culture was Fatyanovo-Balanovo, which was the origin Corded Ware, but there were also others. The Samara culture (Y-haplogroup R1b Eastern Hunter Gatherers, Samara ceramics, dated to 5500 BC) was probably too much to the South to disturb trade connections, but there was also Yuzhniy Oleni Ostrov (Y-haplogroups R1a1, J2b, EHG, from 6000 BC) in Karelia [9]. The paper [9] mentions an interesting thing: Saami of Kola have 14% J2, thought to be a relict of an older population, and there is 10-15% J2b in Mordovania, especially in Moksa. It is possible that there was some admixture with some Saami populations and these Indo-European peoples, but concerning Finland, the trade connections both Baltic countries and to Russia seem to have stopped after 4000 BC. If so, the situation in Finland did not change before the Corded Ware.
CWC people arrived to Finland around 3000 BC. They were farmers with cattle, horses and pigs, and around 3000 BC there was a temporary warm period. Even so, the area suitable for cultivation with the methods of the time was limited to the coastal area. There is no clear demonstration that they managed to cultivate anything, but pollen measurements indicate that they had livestock (see [5]). However, the weather got cooler. Figure 2 in [8] shows the weather in Sweden, four reconstructions from stable isotopes in sediments in four Swedish lakes. There was a 1-2 degree drop in the temperatures around 2200 BC. CWC in Finland ended in 2300 BC, so in Finland cooling may have happened a bit earlier. CWC was
One interesting new piece of information in [5] is the earlier dating of the Corded Ware Culture in Finland. In [6] from 1990 CWC in Finland is dated beginning in 2600 BC, but new radiocarbon dates (indeed from Jönsaks) give 3490-3020 BC for a CWC coal sample. After these radiocarbon dates Estonian (and other Souther Baltic) dates for CWC have been revised upwards, to 3000 BC, see [7].
In reality, however, the oldest measured dates in [7] are from 2900 BC and we may well ask if Corded Ware came to Finland from the Baltic countries. Maybe it did not. It is quite well known that Baltic countries got CWC from the Fatyanovo-Balanovo culture in Russia. This culture is dated to 3200-2300 BC. The Y-haplogroup of this culture was R1a and it is believed that the Baltic countries also got the pre-Baltic indo-European language from this culture. Baltic people had already started farming and animal husbandry before the Corded Ware arrived, but abandoned it, and agriculture started again in Corded Ware. So, this is agreed, but how about Finland. Because the time spell from 3200 BC in Fatyanovo-Balanovo to 3000 BC of CWC in Finland is so short, it could be that Fatyanovo-Balanovo people expanded to both sides of the Baltic sea at the same time, or maybe even slightly earlier to Finland, where population was sparser and agriculture had not been earlier practiced.
As there is very little Y-haplogroup R1a in In Finland, we can conclude that CWC did not leave genetic prints to the population. It is possible that Baltic loan words in Finnish came from these CWC people in Finland, but this need not be so. We first should consider where the Finns were before coming to Finland, but let us continue the historical sequence.
CWC in Finland was followed by the Kiukainen culture and then by the Bronze Age. In both Kiukainen culture and Bronze Age one can see Scandinavian influence, mainly from Sweden. There are for instance Bronze spear heads made in Sweden and found in Vantaa. I think it is likely that Y-haplogroup I1 came to Finland in this time period, basically in the Bronze Age. The earliest dated I1 is from Sweden, from 1400 BC.
But this was only the costal areas. Comb Ceramics continued in the rest of Finland, and there were contacts between the costal areas and non-costal Finland. From 3600 BC to 1500 BC this ceramics is mixed with asbestos. Asbestos ceramics was also found from Bolshoy Oleny island in Muurmansk, thus there may well have been a connection between the population of in-land Finland and this site mentioned in [3], known to have Y-haplogroup N1c and Siberian admixture. This Muurmansk population most probably spoke a Fenno-Ugrian language, so trade connections to it were very possibly established. Additional Siberian admixture in Saami may come from such connections.
Let us move to the shift from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age. The weather got warmer around 800-300 BC (e.g. fig.2 in [8]) and new settlers could again try farming in Finland. As Kalevala tells and [2] confirms, these were Finns practising slash and burn agriculture. They settled costal areas of both sides of the Bay of Finland and much later expanded towards the North. The expansion of Finns since the Roman Iron Age can be followed and presents no mystery.
There is a small mystery of where these Finns came from, but that can be solved from N-L1026 phylogenetic tree [4]. There are two branches that are clearly Finnish: N-VL29 and N-Z1925.
The branch N-VL29 includes Finns, Karelians, Baltic people. This is the Baltic Finns and it must have been in Europe as there are only European subbranches to it. The branch was born 4000 ybp and the TMRCA is 3600 ybp. We can therefore assume that Baltic Finns were somewhere in Eastern Europe in 2000-1600 BC. They had not yet started moving to Estonia or Finland. They most probably were on some river bank on the way from Volga-Oka area to the Bay of Finland. Y-haplogroup N1c has been found from Zhizhitskaya culture close to Smolensk. This sample is dated to 2500 BC. This sample fits well to Baltic Finns.
The other branch, N-Z1925 was born 3400 ybp and has the TRMCA of 3000 ybp. It includes Finns and Karelias. The branch N-Z1925 is a subranch of N-Z1934, which is located in Northern Russia and Finland, and was born 4300 ybp and has the TMRCA as 4300 ybp. These people came to Finland/Karelia around 1400-1000 BC but were in Northern Europe (Russia/Karelia) already 3300 BC.
The whole tree N-1026 includes so many Fenno-Ugric speaking peoples that the language of the root of this tree must be Fenno-Ugric, indeed it must be Finnic. Let us notice that Saami Nc1 belong to both of these two branches. Saami does not have some archaic Siberian N1c. They have the same Nc1 as Baltic Finns and Karelians have. Thus, Saami did not get Nc1 from the Bolshoi people of 1600 BC with Siberian DNA. They may have got more Siberian admixture, but they got the Nc1 the same way Finns got it: some of it was in Smolensk area 2000 BC.
There are more things to mention of Saami. The Levänluhta samples in [3] are all women, but their mtDNA was obtained. It is not Saami mtDNA. The found haplogroups are K1a4a1b, U5a1a1 and U5a1a1a’b, while the Saami have mainly U5b and V. The Bolshoi people had mtDNA U5a1d. It does not agree with Saami. U5a is quite common in Finns, while U5a1d is found in Scandinavians. Most probably the people of Levänluhta were not Saami. They were the people called Lapps in old accounts. It is not known who the Lapps were. They had to retreat to the North or mix with Finns when Finns expanded to the whole country.
Interestingly, [3] includes two samples from a known 18th century Saami cemetery Chalmny Varre. One man had Y-haplogroup I2a (yDNA I2a1, mtDNA V7a1), which is what the native WHG people had. Thus, it can be argued that WHG people admixed with Saami, or Saami are the original WHG people, but heavily admixed. I prefer the first alternative, since Saami DNA does differ from WHG DNA in Swedish samples.
One of the Levänluhta samples in [3] had the mtDNA K1a4a1b (Neolithic Europe) and no Siberian admixture. Thus, she was not Saami, but could have been a survivor of Corded Ware, for instance. One must not draw too strong conclusions from the results of [3].
Yet, there was nothing unexplainable or revolutionary in the new papers [2] and [3]. Both have good results, but they do not challence the existing explanations. They do clarify some questions. Thus, we can now say that Baltic Finns were not in the Bay of Finland before 1000 BC, and there was as much Siberian admixture in Levänluhta as in modern Saami. There are still some small differencies between dating by linguistic and by phylogenetics of Y-haplogroup N-L1026, but they are rather minor.
As these new papers did not throw so much new light on the problem (I do not think I need to update my earlier post [1], it is sufficiently correct for 2018 and still now), I have to try if I can get any new insight from Kalevala mythology. But just very briefly.
In Kalevala there is a poem (Poem 47) which tells of a metero falling down to a lake in Estonia. There have not been that many instances of this type in the feasible time frame. The only one known is the Kaali lake meterorite, dates to 1600 BC. Kalevala tells that the fireball fell on the other side of river Neva, which is correct assuming that Baltic Finns were East of Neva in 1600 BC. Baltic Finns could not be in the Volga-Oka area and hear rumors of a meteor. Naturally there is the possibility that they got the muth from Baltic people.
Kalevala does suggest a place where Kalevala heroes were living. Vȁina, as in Vȁinȁmöinen, is a strait. Vȁinȁmöinen is called Suvantolainen and suvanto is wider place of a stream where water flows slowly. There is also Saari (island) where Lemminkȁinen escaped. A natural identification is Estonia: Vȁina is associated with Vȁina sea in Estonia or Vȁina river in Lithuania (Daugava), and Saari is Saaremaa in Estonia. However, Baltic Finns were not in these places when the meteor fell down to Kaali lake in Saaremaa. A brief look at a map shows that there is no equally natural place in any Eastern location. Unfortunately, it seems that these stories from Kalevala refer to a later time and the place indicated is Estonia. Let us try something else.
There is no mention of Vȁinȁmöinen or Joukahainen using a drum. Yet, Vȁinȁmöinen is a shaman and Joukahainen is a Lappish shaman. Instead, Vȁinȁmöinen plays a kantele (kind of a harp) and Joukahainen shoots with a bow. Bow and arrow were used in shamanism before the drum. The use of a drum is often dated in Siberian shamanism to the first century AD. This, and that Vȁinȁmöinen is not a very typical shaman, supports the idea that Baltic Finns came to the Bay of Finland before the first century, but that we knew already.
A bow is in a way a playing instrument. Vȁinȁmöinen puts his opponents to sleep by playing. (It is not so that Finnish music is dull or poor, it is meant to make you sleep.) Kalevala has many typical shamanistic elements, such as the upper world, the world of mortals and the lower world, where the shaman occasionally must visit. Vȁinȁmöinen goes twice to the world of the dead (Manala). There is a clear similarity between Vȁinȁmöinen and Orpheus, as also between Vȁinȁmöinen and Odin. Notice that there is a clear similarity between many myths. There are two star constellations that appear as humans: Orion and Hercules. Orion is Osiris, Orpheus, Vȁinȁmöinen and Odin, as Orion is not visible for a part of the year. (The belt of Orion is Vȁinȁmöinen’s sword.) Hercules (Ilmarinen, Thor,…) fights with monsters, like Draco, Ursa Major, Ursa Minor. .
The mother of Lemminkȁinen collects her son from pieces. In Siberian shamanism there is an initiation rite where an initiated shaman is cut to pieces (symbolically). This reminds us of Osiris. Isis did not find the penis of Osiris. Kalevala does not tell that Lemminkȁinen was missing a penis, but instead, in graves in Finland there are so called idols. They are made of clay and a class of idols resemble penis. It may be a part of the burial rite.
In Siberian shamanism there are two sacred numbers, seven and nine. Seven can be easily interpreted: there are seven stars in Ursa Major, but there are also seven bright stars in Ursa Minor. Together they may make horns of a heavenly elk. In some shaman drums there are two times seven human figures. In some other shaman drums there are nine stars. How do we get nine stars? There are five planets: mercurius, mars, venus, saturn, jupiter. There are two human figures, Orion (shaman himself, or his protector spirit) and Hercules (fighting shaman). We cannot count stars of these constellations to the nine stars. There are also important stars: Sirius, Deneb, Vega, Thuban. The last three were Pole Stars in the past, while Sirius is the companion (Isis) of Osiris/Orion, or Fenir wolf eating Odin’s legs. Adding these four stars and the five planets we get nine. Thus, shamanism reflects the same religion as all ancient religions before moral religions obsolated them (starting from Zoroastrism).
In Siberian shamanism a shaman always has familiars, spirits, who help him. These familiars appear in animal shapes. We can see a familiar of the shape of an eagle saving Vȁinȁmöinen from the sea when Joukahainen shot his boat. Notice that in this Kalevala poem Vȁinȁmöinen sails in the sea on a horse. This is shamanism: in shamanism the drum is often understood as shaman’s horse, and a shaman is often shown as sailing in a boat. A shaman is Orion/Osiris, going to the underworld and to the above world. The above world is stars. This, of course, is clear. There is also a reference to metallic idols of familiar spirits. A Siberian shaman attaches metallic pictures, usually of birds, to his dress. They protect him against malovalent spirits. In Kalevala Ilmarinen makes an iron eagle, which catches the pike Ilmarinen is required to catch. This image of an eagle may be one in a shaman’s dress. However, in general, the familiar theme is not much seen in Kalevala, agreeing with the idea that the myths were created before Siberian shamanism developed. Notice that almost all Fenno-Ugrian people practiced shamanism, the only exceptions are Baltic Finns and Hungarians. Of Hungarians we do not know as the Maguar elite died out, but of Baltic Finns we have Kalevala. It must be older than typical Siberian shamanism. Siberian shamanism has many of the features what Kalevala shows, like the world tree, but Kalevala does not have many shamanistic features and is more similar to Germanic Edda in a way. Siberian shamanism developed around 1000 BC. This means that Finnic people were not in the Volga-Oka area in 1000 BC.
Notice also that in Kalevala the opponent of Vȁinȁmöinen is the Lady of the North (Pohjan akka), whose people are Lapps. This lady lives in a house, not in a Saami tent. Consequently, this Northern country (Pohjola) is Pohjanmaa (Ostra Bothnia) and Lapps are not Saami. Saami lived in the North, not in Levänluhta. (No archeological sites show definitively that Saami ever were settled South of Oulu.) It is not possible to say if Pohjola is from Viking time or from early Iron Age (Iron is referred to all the time, the storys are not Bronze Age), but in both cases Pohjola should have Swedish influences but basically native Finnish people (continuation of the Bronze Age population). Those people are different from Baltic Finns and they speak a different language, yet understandable to Kalevala heroes. If Pohjola would be Swedish, it would have to be Viking, and there should be some references to Viking practices or beliefs. That means, the Bronze Age culture had a Fenno-Ugric languge before Baltic Finns came there.
Saami, on the other hand, have typical Siberian shamanism with drums and all. They must have had Siberian influence after the first century AD, which may explain their higher Siberian admixture. This admixture may date to reindeer herding around 1000 AD. Notice that Northern Russians have very similar autosomal DNA as Finns, that is, less Siberian admixture than Saami. Mythology was one of the methods to study the past, then it was found highly unreliable and researchers today use linguistics, genetics and archeology. But it may be that mythology could give some insight in this particular problem, if performed better than I did here.
References:
[1] Jorma Jormakka, “Origin of Finns and Saami”, post on this site, March 2018
Origins of Finns and Saami
[2] Lehti Saag et al, The Arrival of Siberian Ancestry Connecting the Eastern Baltic to Uralic Speakers further East, Current Biology 29(10), May 2019.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/333000290_The_Arrival_of_Siberian_Ancestry_Connecting_the_Eastern_Baltic_to_Uralic_Speakers_further_East
for a public domain draft version, see
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6544527/
[3] Sanni Översti et al, “Human mitochondrial DNA lineages in Iron-Age Fennoscandia suggest incipient admixture and eastern introduction of farming-related maternal ancestry”, Nature, Scientific reports 9, 15. Nov 2019.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-51045-8
[4] The latest N1c-L1026 phylogenetic tree. It gives creation and TRMCA estimates:
https://www.yfull.com/tree/N-L1026/
[5] Sirpa Leskinen, Petro Pesonen, Vantaan esihistoria, Vantaan kaupunki, Otava, 2008.
[6] Matti Huurre, 9000 vuotta Suomen esihistoriaa, Otava, 1990.
[7] Lembi Lougas et al, “New dates for the Late Neolithic Corded Ware Cultureburials and early husbandry in the East Baltic region”, Archaeofauna 16 (2007): 21-31.
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/4bd2/96429b5ecbe8c666f45c3cbd7bf28e2aab81.pdf
[8] Göran Ericsson et al, Climate Change, Moose and Humans in Northern Sweden 4000 cal. yr BP (2012).
[9] Alexander Semenov, Vladimir Bulat, “On Localization of Ancient Bearers of Y-DNA R1a Haplotype in Eastern Europe Neolithic Cultures”, Russian Journal of Biological Research, 2015, Vol. (6), Is. 4.
http://ejournal23.com/journals_n/1453208266.pdf
[10] A sample web discussion about the topic: