Map 1. This theory has been around so long that there has been a
tendency to revise it (mainly to change the date of arrival at the
Baltic), rather than throw it out, until recently.
There has never been a problem with the comparative
linguistics determinations themselves. The problem has been in applying
it to describe the real events.
Linguistics has decided on the existence of a large superfamily
of "Uralic" languages of western Eurasia, which have a basic
subdivision between the "Samoyeds" and "Finno-Ugrians". The former
refer to peoples in the high arctic, originally reindeer hunters, now
herding them, who have strong arctic mongoloid racial features. The
original studies concluded from linguistic distances that an
original "Uralic" language family split into the "Samoyed" language
family and the "Finno-Ugric" language family. There is nothing
wrong with seeing these two groups having roots in the same prehistoric
language. The issue is how the languages, dialects, drifted apart.. The
original tight-origin theory assumed a tight origin in the
vicinity of the Ural Mountains around 6000BC, and then the original
parental "Finno-Ugric" language started to subdivide and subdivide,
with each breakaway group migrating elsewhere. See the above map. The
problems with this theory are countless, notably, when one takes into
account the far-ranging nature of boat-using hunter-fisher-gatherers
such as found in Canada in around 1600.
Back when the original
tight-origin theory was being developed it appears only one
contemporary linguist was intelligent enough to realize something was
wrong. In 1907 Heikki Ojansuu expressed the view that "the F-U peoples
once occupied a broad zone extending somewhere from the region of
Ilmajärvi, then along the Volga and its tributaries to the region of
the Kama and the Urals" He believed that hunters and fishermen needed
large areas for their activities (Heikki Ojansuu, Oma Maa, 1 (1920),
318-328). Later another Finn, Paavo Ravila noted, but did not realize,
the solution of simple dialectic differentiation, that the geographical
distribution of the F-U languages closely reflected their relationship.
Later, another Finn, Erkki Itkonen, proposed the conflicts the original
linguists' theory had with archeology (that found no evidence of
migrations) could be reduced by assuming the F-U peoples occupied the
entire area from the Urals and the Baltic from time immemorial.
(Itkonen, Oma Maa, 1958) Toivo Vuorela summed this line of thinking as
follows (Vuorela, The Finno-Ugric Peoples Eng. trans. J. Atkinson,
1964) "In this sense [Itkonen] refers to Ojansuu's idea of an 'unbroken
zone of peoples' from Ilmajärvi to the Urals, and to Ravila's view that
the geographical distribution of the F-U languages reflects their
relationship. When the once food-gathering peoples, who had needed wide
areas in which to move about, became agriculturalists and so were more
inclined to stay in one area, 'the various groups that were accustomed
to live together became virtually frozen to the spot in their former
hunting grounds' -- and thus dialects became more and more separate and
over centuries and millenia developed into separate languages.
The idea of hunting people 'being frozen
to their former hunting grounds' is interesting from the point of view
of the Estonian and Finnish words for 'family' pere/perhe . It is
possible that this word originates from PEO-RA (ie, pida +
rada) meaning 'hunting,trapping, catching + trail, way,
road' suggesting that each clan had their own hunting
territory of trails, something confirmed among Canada's Algonquian
Indian past; so that when they had to settle down, the hunting trails
disappeared so that all that was left was the clan, the family, the
PEO-RA, or pere/perhe.
Another issue was whether Finno-Ugric
languages existed to the west of the Baltic, since no Finno-Ugric
languages survived there by the 19th century. Clearly had a Finno-Ugric
language or two survived in Sweden or Britain, as proof, all the
thinking would have taken another route. (History in Norway and Sweden
speak of 'Finns' on coasts, in the forests and on the tundra, and
scholars commonly assume that it means the Saami,(Lapps).
Still, here too, there was one scholar
who took another view than the tight-Ural-origin theory. The
German Gustaf Kossinna tried to place the F-U homeland in North Germany
and Scandinavia (Mannus, I-II Mannus Bibl. 26 (1909-1911))
Interestingly, there is a suggestion in the Estonian folk epic
Kalevipoeg that (assuming the part I will refer to is from original
folklore and not invented by the compiler) there was, perhaps back in
the Viking Age, Finno-Uric speakers in Norway. In the story, Kalev has
three sons, one becoming Kalevipoeg, the hero of Estonian and Finnish
folklore, another going to Russia to become a merchant (referring
probably to the Votes and others who carried on trade to the Dneiper
and Volga) and the third to Norway to "become a warrior". It is clear
that the intent of the folk legend was to acknowledge all obviously
related Finnic peoples, as they would obviously have had the same
parent - Kalev(a). This last Norwegian warrior character is interesting
because it was during 800-1000AD that Danish kings were on a campaign
to bring Norway into their kingdoms. Thus for two centuries southern
Norway and up its coast was a region of conflict, requiring soldier
assistance. It follows that around 800-1000AD, Estonians would have
perceived there to be a related people always at war with the Danish
armies, and hence the legend-maker included a son of Kalev who was a
warrior/soldier in Norway, in order to give an origin to a
Finnic-speaking people in southern Norway. Historically Norwegian
and Swedish documents speak of the aboriginal peoples - not just the
reindeer people, but those on the coasts and in the forests, - being
'Finns' and that the name 'Finland' was a Swedish creation, as the area
now Finland belonged to Sweden. One can say 'Well they were
people related to the Saami (Lapps)' and that might be alright, if the
Saami spoke a language very different from Finnish, but the fact is the
Saami language is so Finnic in character, that linguistics includes it
in the Finno-Ugric and often even in the Balto-Finnic languages. It all
suggests the better view is that the Saami and Balto-Finnic language
are related and that what separates them is only the level of
development towards civilization, the more southerly ones (Finnish,
Estonian, and extinct ones further south) adapting more and faster to
the agricultural civilization pushing up from the south, while the
northernly ones (Saami) remained relatively primitive due to greater
isolation.
Furthermore, should we put up the
western boundary at Scandinavia? Since archeology indicates trade
connections between Norway and northern Britain (ie the Picts), we can
extend the Finno-Ugrians even to the Picts, at least those of the east
side. The connection between the trader-Picts and the east Baltic is
affirmed by the Anglo-Saxon scholar monk Venerable Bede who wrote in
his famous history of Britain, that the Picts had come in longboats
"from Scythia". In that day, "Scythia" was the region from the east
Baltic eastward. Clearly traders from Greater Estonia were arriving on
the British east coast, and were witnessed to speak a language similar
to that of the Picts who recieved them.
Thus alternative views that are now
proving to be more correct, have had early precendents among scholars;
however individual voices were drowned out by those who promoted the
tight Ural origin, and successions of migrations westward.
The New View of the Languages of the Boat Peoples
Already from about the 50's archeology, failing to find any evidence of
east-to-west migrations or a tight homeland, took issue with the old
theory. Noted Estonian archeologist Richard Indreko, for example wrote
that the archeological evidence, on the contrary, showed a movement of
archeological culture the other way - from west to east. But the
tendency was to revise the old theory, than to dispose of it.
Archeology showed an east to west movement of pottery with comblike
markings. Maybe that showed the migration, some said. Richard Indreko
addressed this suggestion by pointing out that the movement of a
cultural feature does not mean migration. It can mean simply the
movement of a new cultural practice through contacts between related
Finno-Ugric tribes. Later it could be the result of trade.
But nobody pointed out the
main problem with ANY migration theory: the nature of the life of
boat-using hunter-fishers. Living in Canada, I became interested in the
Algonquian aboriginal peoples, who lived a similar life as
boat(canoe)-travelling hunter-fishers, in a similar northern
environment. I saw in them a good model for ancient Finno-Ugric
language development. In this Algonquian language family, the
linguistic divisions - as Europeans found them in the 16th century -
were according to water basins, a different language in a different
water basin, with the larger ones having dialectic subdivisions. This
is because they moved around in canoes. They were boat-people. People
who are dependent on boats not only travel some five times further than
people on foot, but they will tend to remain within the water system
where the boats can travel. Thus each water system would tend to
form its own dialectic subdivision of the larger culture. In a sentence
far-ranging seasonally nomadic boat-using hunter-gatherers were not
localized, but were naturally constrained by where their boats could
easily go, constrained by water basin boundaries.
When Europeans arrived in he
17th century they found that there were the Cree in the water basin of
the Hudson Bay, Ojibwa in the water basin of the Great Lakes,
Algonquins in the Ottawa River water basin, Montagnais Innu in the
Saguenay River water basin, and Labrador Innu in the Churchill River
water basin. I haves shown this on a map of North America below.
Map 2. The Algonquian native peoples of the forested region of the
east quadrant of northeast North America, were boat-using hunter-fisher
gatherers who lived a seasonally nomadic life. Their language divisions
are related to water basins, and the best explanation for their history
is that there was a rapid expansion up all the rivers from the
Altantic, that filled up the lands, and then gradually dialectic
divergence occurred according to boat-use being confined to water basin
regions.
When we apply this to northern Europe, to the entire region that
archeology demonstrates was inhabited by boat-oriented hunter-fisher
peoples, we arrive at a map like this:
Map 3.The Finno-Ugric origins are best viewed in boat-using
hunter-gatherers in a similar environment, and their language family
divisions also are related to water basins. The Finno-Ugric
subdivisions are however older, as the languages have further
subdivided as a result of people settling down into farming. But the
ancient situation, resembling that of the Algonquians, is evident. Note
that if the Finno-Ugrians extended further west, there once were other
dialectic regions for example in the Vistula and Oder River water
basins.
The above map shows that the Finno-Ugric language
subdivisions too are related to water basins (Baltic, Volga, Ob, etc),
, so that the it is clear that there were no migrations, but rather the
constant movements of seasonally nomadic boat-peoples, who were
nonetheless constrained to water systems so that linguistic distances
developed according to the natural separation of boat peoples by the
water systems in which they moved
In short, the languages developed in the
same way as dialects--by an original language covering a large area,
and geographic circumstances causing localization. (And later in
history as the nomadic Finno-Ugrians settled down to farm, each of the
basic water-system dialects began to subdivide further between one
farming area and another.)
additional discussion: influences from reindeer peoples
In the real world, nothing is every this simple. In
the Algonquian example, there was influence from the Inuit languages of
the North American arctic, and from the Iroquoian languages of the
lower Great Lakes. These languages would mainly have influenced the
dialects next to these other peoples, but too weak for the influences
to affect the entire wide distribution of these boat people languages +
unless of course the influence is very strong and lasts millenia!
The same is true of the expansion of the language of
the European boat peoples that arose from the archeological "Maglemose"
and "Kunda" cultures around the south and east Baltic.The following map
shows what had happened by about 10,500 Before Present. Note how the
Volga-Kama and Pechora water systems came close together about the
midpoint of the Urals. It is highly probable that there was a meeting
place there - meeting to trade, socialize, find mates. It would have
been there that reindeer people in the Urals would have influenced the
language of the boat peoples arriving there.
Map 4 The base map underneath the added information comes from a
scholarly article in the publication given in the text below the map.
Few maps showing the retreat of the glaciers bothers to show the
regions flooded by glacial meltwater, that today appear as coastal
marshlands. I was very pleased to find this map, because the
locations of flooding is very important to our discussion of both boat
people and reindeer people, because boat people find water as
beneficial, while reindeer cannot survive in flooded lands, even in
winter because reindeer need to find their lichen food underneath the
snow. This map actually shows why the "Kunda" culture would have easily
expanded east - they only needed to follow the glacier lakes. And it
shows why any N3 reindeer people at the north end of the Urals would
not have been able to migrate west to northern Finland for several
millenia and modern coasts and tundra had appeared. It is recommended
the reader interested in this, investigate paleoclimatology to
understand both the expansion of the boat peoples, and the shrinking
ability for reindeer to find anywhere to survive, other than the arctic
Siberian coast, which we can see had no glaciers or glacial lakes.
At this early time, the regions formerly covered by the Ice Age
glaciers were completely new and vacant, or where previously the land
was too cold (like today the interior of Antarctica). Boat
people expandng into the new flooded lands did not
encounter any other peoples or languages
until some reached the vicinity of the Ural Mountains.
According to archeology, a culture that looked like
the "Kunda" culture appears to have reached the Pechora water basin. At the
same time another boat people, which I think can be identified with the
"Maglemose" culture went north from the Volga to the location where the
Pechora, Kama and Ural Mountains are close together.
In locations where the territories of different peoples come close to
each it was the practice of northern aboriginal peoples - and
there are many examples in northern North America - of the development of
significant gathering places where the normally scattered people can come together to
socialize, find mates, and trade. From logic alone, there was
convergence between languages and cultures at such locations.
The map above shows how the blue arrows of the boat
people reach the Ural Mountains in about the middle location where
archeology shows there were hunter-gatherers of a different culture.
Recently the new science of population genetics has discovered that men
of reindeer peoples across the Eurasian arctic possess the highest
concentration of the Y-DNA N-haplogroup. It appears to have travelled
north from about 15,000 years ago. It is obvious that this haplogroup
originated with reindeer people in the Ice Age, and then moved north
with the original Ice Age reindeer herds as the world climate warmed.
While the N2 version of the N-haplogroup is easy to understand because
it dominates the Tamir Peninsula Samoyeds, the story of the N3 version
(today called N1b) is complex as it ended up in highest concentrations
in the Yakuts of northeast Siberia, and the Saami and Finns of northern
Finland. (From these locations the haplogroup radiated outward as men
carrying it moved out into surrounding territories, often abandoning
their original reindeer-oriented way of life. The explanation for the
division of the N3-halogroup into Saami and Yakuts, thousands of km
apart, was solved in 2006 by Rootsi et al. (Rootsi,S., et al.
2006,
A counterclockwise northern route of the Y-chromosome haplogroup N from Southeast Asia towards Europe”
European Journal of Human Genetics 15 (2): 204-11) In that study,
the conclusion was that the N3 (N1b) haplogroup originated around
12,000 years ago in southwest Siberia, south of the Ob River water
basin. Here the men divided into two - one group turning east, and the
other group turning west. In my opinion, since reindeer cannot survive
in the marshlands of the Ob River water basin, the reindeer had to go
around it, and then continue north either through the Central Siberian
Plateau or the Ural Mountain range.
According to Rootsi et al, the N3 (N1b) haplogroup
that went west, turned north and went through the Ural Mountains,
becoming established about 10,000 years ago. And then later it
migrated west along the arctic coast to northern Finland, and from
northern Finland diffused south. The reason for that route is
simple - it followed the movements of reindeer herds. The reindeer had
to travel north in the Urals, because further west was too hot and
marshy. Next the reindeer had to travel along the north coast of
northeast Europe also in order to stay in the cool tundra, but only
when the glaciers and glacial lakes had disappeared.
The connection of the N-haplogroup to peoples who
were dependent on tundra reindeer herds is so obvious, that those
scholars who claim the N-haplogroup entered the Finnic boat peoples, is
ridiculous. Other than the Saami, the Finnic cultures and language are
dominated by imagery related to boat use and wetlands. There is nothing
connected to reindeer. It follows that the N3 haplogroup entered the
Finnic peoples simply from reindeer people in northern Finland,
departing from their original reindeer-oriented life, and entering the
much more flexible and adaptable boat-oriented hunter gatherers. Once
they had changed culture, the far ranging nature of boat use quickly
spread the reindeer-hunter haplogroup southward.
Since the migration southward of the N3(N1b)
haplogroup would have been motivated by moving from the
reindeer-oriented culture to the boat-oriented hunter-gatherer culture,
those who converted to the boat people world, would quickly have
adopted the language of the boat people.
Conclusions: Language of the Boat Peoples probably at roots of Finnic
Archeology has always
suggested the obvious - as the climate warmed after the Ice Age,
culture expanded out of Europe into the east. Now the new genetic
studies also suggest that Finno-Ugric speaking peoples are basically
Europeans. Thus it is only now that Finno-Ugric languages and
traditions are being considered in terms of the history of Europe. It
is now easier to accept that the Finno-Ugric languages originate from
the original boat-oriented hunter-fisher peoples of northern Europe.
But many are unable to grasp the nature of these people. But a good
picture of them can be had by considering the nature of the Algonquian
natives peoples of northeastern North America - a people who were
similarly nomadic boad using hunter-fishers, and similarly lived in a
northern wooded region filled with waterways. In addition
we can see how European civilization has affected them from south to
north since the 17th century. It is easy to see that the same thing
occurred in Europe, except at a much slower pace, as technology and
population growth in the civilized parts of Europe were not advancing
at the same pace as in the last centuries.
Let's review what has happened
here in North America. North America was overrun by Europeans from the
17th to 20th century, and history plainly shows the manner in which it
affected the original native peoplesnbsp; Basically the European
settlers were farmers; thus the regions where the native peoples were
displaced or assimilated first were first those areas which were ideal
for farming. Marshes, rocky hillsides, acidic rocky soils,
mountains and cold northern climates were places where the
European settlers did not immediately go, and native tribes found
refuge there. Gradually European settlers pushed into poor lands too,
so the native peoples then could only survive in the VERY poor lands,
particularly in the remote north.
Today, native language and culture
survives most strongly in Canada, primarily because of the cold
northern climate that resists being farmed. While in the United States,
only small pockets of native cultures can still be found (desert areas
having more of them), in Canada the entire north part of Canada is
strongly populated by native cultures, that is, by peoples who still
identify themselves as native and even speak their own language (Cree,
Dene, Inuit, etc).
Scholars in North Americans, faced with
the question of the evolution of Europe, therefore are more inclined to
accept a theory that perhaps the Saami and Finns of northern Europe may
similarly be remnants of the original native people of Europe. It is
almost obvious. But scholars do not think broadly enough. What is
required is to imagine the nature of aboriginal peoples across the
entire northern Europe, then being influenced by the arrival of new
cultures, new practices, starting with the regions most suited to
farming. We are not merely dealing with the extinguishing of the Saami
in the Scandinavian Peninsula, from south to north - surviving today
only in the most remote north and in the mountains of Norway - but of
northern Europe as a whole. How can we draw the line just at
Scandianvia? These were boat peoples descended from the Maglemose
culture - water was not an obstacle: quite the contrary water
facilitated their movements and expansions, and it is clear that these
people expanded east and south, wherever waterways were found to carry
them and their dugout (or in the north- skin) boats.
If it has been
happening in Canada with respect to the Algonquians, assimilated from
south to north, then why do we not apply this truth to early Europe?
Possibly it is because scholars in Europe cannot grasp it as well as
scholars in North America, especially in Canada.
Thus the plain fact that
farming cultures displace native hunter-fisher-gatherers from south to
north, and from fertile higher lands to poor acid marshlands, leads to
the conclusions that it is possible that indeed the ancestral language
of the Finnic peoples was the original language of continental Europe.
What other candidates are there? And even if there was movement
of culture according to waterways - since all these peoples wandered
seasonally over wide areas - then that represents cultural influence in
the natural course of contacts, not of any kinds of permanent
migrations. We are not talking about farmers, who have to pack up
wagons and migrate. We are talking about peoples who in the northern
world were clans who were already annally covering an area the diameter
of several hundred kilometers, and tribes (groups of 4-6 clans)
whose total diameter could be 1000 miles (The reach could have been
even more if elongated - as with coastal peoples). All that of course
came to an end wherever these peoples established a permanent
settlement, even if they remained primarily hunter-fishers; and when
they became primarily farmers, their range reduced right down to a
radius of maybe only 50 km.
The old linguistic theory on the
origins of Finno-Ugric languages, in describing their origins in a
tight location near the Ural mountains, has done the world of
scholarship a great disservice. For over a century scholars have
completely ignored the Finno-Ugric languages in investigations of
prehistoric Europe simply because they have been told they were not
there, but in the east.
Well all the evidence shows that
the origins of the Finno-Ugric languages were not only in continental
Europe but represent the aboriginal foundations of Europe. Farming
cultures, and eventually Indo-European cultures came into Europe in
waves, and converted the natives in much the same way as European
cultures did in North America since the 16th century. Note that in
later history, there were no migrations, but rather military conquest,
beginning with the Roman conquest of Europe and establishing the Roman
Empire. When the Roman Empire collapsed, Germanic and Slavic powers
adopted Roman methods of conquest and rule, and that is the main reason
the regions originally Finno-Ugric in nature are now speaking Germanic
or Slavic languages. The fate of the Finno-Ugric cultures is the
same as as that of the native peoples of North America, absorbed into
the new cultures introduced by new settlers, or imposed by military
conquerors, except in the regions most remote from the thrust of
civilization. The only different between North America and Europe is
that it occurred much more gradually in Europe.
additional discussion: little influence of reindeer people language on the boat people
The addition of the N3 (N1b) reindeer people considerations may
have affected the boat people dialects at the
contact location where the Pechora, Kama water basins and Ural
Mountains meet, and the later contact locations in northern
Finland, but most of the region of boat peoples far from these
contact locations was not affected.
Because the Ob-Ugrian languages are much more like Samoyedic
than the Finnic languages to the west of the Urals, today some
linguists wish to consider the Ugric languages (Ob-Ugrian lanuages and
today's Hungarian displaced south by the fur trade) to more
properly belong to the Turkic languages. It is significant that
the linguists consider the language of the Yakut reindeer peoples to be
"Turkic". Reindeer people called Duhka in the southern Siberian and
northern Mongolian mountains have a language also considered Turkic. Is
it possible the Samoyedic and Saami language is also Turkic. but was
more influenced towards Finnic, than the reverse.
In general when two
languages come in contact, the language of the stronger culture will
have more effect on the other language, and throughout the period of
retreat of the glaciers and the warming of the world climate, the boat
people dominated. The climate warming between 15,000 years ago and
10,000 years ago favoured the boat peoples since they were adapted to
flooded and forested lands. At the same time reindeer people were
compromised as the tundra reindeer herds disappeared. The
original way of life that harvested large tundra reindeer herds
disappeared. Ex-reindeer people had to hunt individual woodland
reindeer, moose, elk, and aquatic animals, and move around a marshy
landscape with boats. In general, ex-reindeer peoples all joined the
boat peoples, and that explains why Finnic people possess the
N3-haplogroup and also some mongoloid characteristics in their faces -
they include reindeer people who joined the boat people when the
original reindeer culture collapsed other than a few refuge locations.
Personally I have no objection to the reindeer
peoples languages being dropped off the grouping of boat-people
languages, and for
linguists to put them into an improved "Turkic" language family,
putting reindeer peoples languages close to its roots. The reason is
simple: the tradition of hunting and managing tundra reindeer herds is
so completely different from the original boat-oriented
hunting-gathering way of life that it is difficult to imagine mixing
the two. In fact, in the larger picture, according to archeology,
the "Maglemose" and "Kunda" cultures arose from the north European
reindeer people who then became extinct. Tundra reindeer culture
is therefore many thousands of years older than that of the boat
people, and have a history all its own before anyone even thought of
moving around in a flooded landscape in boats.
2016 (c) A. Pääbo. UPDATED 2016
