Uralic in N. Europe = Mesolithic vs. Bronze Age vs. very late arrival to Europe????

[Vesuvian Sky]

The Uralic languages of N. Europe have a questionable position. Peter Schrijver tried to show them as 'Mesolithic survivor languages' with his language of geminates theory but this is sketchy linguistic evidence at best.

Others have argued a ruling elite would have brought them to N. Europe during the Seima-Turbino cultural phenomenon.

Finally, some have argued Uralic as a very late arriver to N. Europe, only 500 years ago.

So what time period best explains Uralic's presence in N. Europe?

Please present any worthwhile article you have on the subject here as it seems there have only been coffee cup guesses to its position in N. Europe rather then any rigorous academic review.

[Harkonnen]

My personal favorite is the 500 years ago theory

[Vesuvian Sky]

My personal favorite is the 500 years ago theory

Fantastic! We have a brave soul willing to respond to this question that helps us shape how we can possible view language and identity during pre-historic Europe. Please vote if you haven't already.

Any particular reason why though?

[Hweinlant]

So what time period best explains Uralic's presence in N. Europe?

Proto-Uralic did not come to Europe anywhere, as it sprung up in Eastern Europe, very close to putative Indo-European homeland (they were neighbours). Linguistic paleontology (tree names etc) has been able to position the location of Proto-Uralic to Central Russia. If you have a map at hand, you can draw a triangle where the points are cities of Moscov-Yaroslavl-Perm. That is roughly the "Uralic urheimat".

Linguistic methodology can not yet answer to the exact age of Proto-Uralic, reconstructed words indicate hunter-fishermen type of society on the one hand, while on the other hand Bronze Age type of technology. What can be said is that Late Proto-Uralic (period just before the divergence into daughter languages/branches) was Bronze Age language. Earlier strata indicated Mesolithic type of culture. So timespan from early Proto-Uralic to Late Proto-Uralic is 2-3K years. This would make Proto-Uralic (from early to late) period span from "Forest Neolithic" to Bronze Age.

Proto-Uralic, like any other "proto-language" had ancestral language(s), in this case Pre-Proto-Uralic. There are two competing views about whereabouts of Pre-Proto-Uralic. Other school argues that it was spoken just east of Ural mountains, in Siberia, while the "archeologically credited" school argues that Pre-Proto-Uralic was spoken in one /some the Combed Ceramic Cultures of Northeast Europe. "Siberian school's" major argument has been presence of Proto-Uralic loanwords found from Yukaghiric languages of Northeast Siberia.

Yukaghirs are a small (very small, propably the language is R.I.P as you read this) language group. They moved to their current inhabitance (northern Yakutia / Sakha Republic) from more northwestern location, Arctic Urals on the Siberian side. Once upon-a-time they were more numerous than today. In this scenario they would have been northern neighbours of Siberian pre-Proto-Uralics.

This theory has recently received major blow as Russian archeologist have shown that typically Yukaghir materials have been found from Kola-peninsula (northeastern arctic Fennoscandia) Bronze Age cemetary. This is the cemetary which was also aDna tested by Dersarkissian in the huge aMtdna study recently. Cemetary site is called Bolshoy Oleni Ostrov (short BOO) in that study. People using the cemetary (near city of Murmansk) in Bronze Age had mixed package of mtdna, combining North Asian and mesolithic European ancestries. Their archeological material pointed out that they were maritime hunters (bone harpoons) and were burried in canoe-like graves. Sort of Paleo-Eskimos living on the arctic maritime fringe of Europe. Their pottery places them inside the huge Arctic Siberian horizon known as Ymiaktakh-culture. This culture is associated with Yukaghir-people in the literature. Thus the most obvious location for Yukaghirs to loan linguistic material from Uralics is infact in Arctic Europe. Dersarkissian's study also found out that modern day Saami are not genetically related to Bronze Age Kola-Peninsula people (atleast not to those buried into Ymiakhtakh cemetary).

Archeologists have "allways" argued that Pre-Proto-Uralic (or Proto-Uralic and it's preceding forms) was spoken in Comb Ceramic Culture(s) of Northeast Europe, special importance has been given to Volosovo-culture. From there the expansion of various different branches of Uralic can be followed with archeological methods (similar way as Indo-European branching can be followed from Khvalynsk culture -> Yamna culture -> etc).

Out of Indo-Europeans the late Proto-Uralics had contacts with atleast people who were linguistically still late Proto-Indo-Europeans. Especially lively connection were with the Aryans (proto-Indo-Iranians). Uralic speaking people on the river Volga still today have Aryan ethnonyms. There is plenty of supposedly Aryan linguistic material also covering the religious-field. For example modern Finnish words for God (Jumala), Fiest (Peijaiset) etc are all considered as Aryan loanwords and have wide distribution inside the Uralic family (meaning that they were present from very early on, just slightly after the divergence into sub-branches). On the other hand modern Finnish (and Estonian) word for slave is Aryan tribal self-ethnonym (Orja). So the relations between different Uralic and Aryan tribes were not allways peacefull and buddybuddy.

Uralic-Aryan contacts lasted for very long time, basically from the time when Aryans were not yet fully different from other Indo-European tribes (pre-proto-Indo-Iranian = late proto-Indo-European), to the stage when they expanded from Southern Urals (Sintasha-Arkaim-Petrovka culture) to South Asia as Indo-Aryans (Mitanni etc), and even after that with the Iranian Scythians.

Uralic languages contain memory of this period, and due regular sound shifts etc different loanwords can be stratified to the correct time frames. This is also very important evidence for the Indo-Europeanists and it seems that they have only recently discovered the full potential of understanding the Uralic linguistic history at Europe.

I still need to comment the Seima-Turbino phenomenom, which is usually completely misunderstud. It's not archeological culture in strict sense. It's trading & technology network. Also the current understanding is that the roots of S&T is to be found from Eastern Europe, from archeological cultures of Garino-Bor and Abashevo. Garino-Bor is eastern expansion of Volosovo culture (so quite likely Proto-Uralic speaking) while Abashevo is considered as mixture of Aryans and possibly even more western Indo-European tribes coming from Central European "Corded Ware Horizon".

Older theory of S&T roots at Altay has been nullified since some time ago all ready. It is quite likely that western end of the trading&technology network of S&T was speaking in Uralic language(s), and was somehow responsible for spreading the language. Same can not be said of the eastern half, which brought S&T technology to Altay/South Siberia. Back in the Bronze Age the Altay-Siberians seem to have been mainly Indo-Europeans (Tokharians, Aryans), Uralics (Samoyeds, possibly Ugrics aswell) got there later but before the Turkics and surely before the Mongols.

Anyhoo, the maps showing S&T spread from Altay to Europe are based on outdated information, as the oldest S&T artefacts are found from Garino-Bor culture (Turbino is one archeological site inside the Garino-Bor culture) and Abashevo culture.

From there it spread westwards all the way to Baltic sea, and eastwards to Altay where they started copper mining operation and secondary production site. Production site of S&T artefacts can be even identified today, measuring the arsenics from the copper. Archeologists can tell if the S&T product was made at Urals or at Altay. Pretty neat.

I hope I answered some of the questions you had.

Edit: I voted for "other" and this post is the explanation.

[Vesuvian Sky]

Ok thanks yes. So many have felt that the Combed Ware archaeological horizon was related to Uralic somehow wether it be at the "pre-phase" or some other of Uralics development. I've heard this theory before, and it would more or less be in line with Mesolithic position and maybe Paleolithic to an extent. This seemed to be what Schrijver was getting at but the problem is that Germanic apparently shows no evidence of such and gemination is considered weak ground to stand on to prove any type of Uralic substratum.

But perhaps Uralic "mesolithic survival theory" may not require such.

For instance, perhaps if Combed Ware culture represents the true hub of "Uralic development" let's call it, it seems that IE presence in the area ended its linguistic presence where early IE's were able to fully establish themselves "culturally" let's say (if we are to assume S. Scandinavia as once having a Uralic presence). Reasons may be that Uralic at the time was strictly a hunter-gatherer language and that invading IEs simply did not adopt anything from them since this Uralic zone may have been represented by hunter gatherers who strictly wished not to interact with invading IEs and maintain let's say a hunter gatherer lifestyle.

[RussiaPrussia]

it must be long long time ago because uralics mixed with the european population as they were originally asians.

[Hweinlant]

Ok thanks yes. So many have felt that the Combed Ware archaeological horizon was related to Uralic somehow wether it be at the "pre-phase" or some other of Uralics development.

Some parts of it. CCC is pretty diverce actually and I doubt everyone inside of it spoke the same language nor were even that closely related. There are several larger, local variants inside CCC. Lyalovo -> Volosovo culture is the best candidate for Uralic speech. There might have been para-Uralic languages spoken in much wider area but the strictly proto-Uralic must have been located in rather small area and had low number of speakers.

I've heard this theory before, and it would more or less be in line with Mesolithic position and maybe Paleolithic to an extent. This seemed to be what Schrijver was getting at but the problem is that Germanic apparently shows no evidence of such and gemination is considered weak ground to stand on to prove any type of Uralic substratum.

There is no Uralic substrata in Germanic. It's more likely that Finnic and Germanic share non-Uralic non-IE paleoeuropean substrata.

But perhaps Uralic "mesolithic survival theory" may not require such.

Nope, imo Uralic is one of the surviving lineages from the languages of the Mammoth Steppe. Indo-European and even Turkic might be aswell. Europe and Asia are pretty much meaningless concepts from the Mammoth Steppe pov , as it spanned from Atlantic France to Bering strait and even into Americas.

(if we are to assume S. Scandinavia as once having a Uralic presence).

I havent seen any concluding evidence for Uralic presence at South Scandinavia until historical times, when the area was allready mainly Germanic. Central Scandinavia (and northwards from there) is other topic.

Reasons may be that Uralic at the time was strictly a hunter-gatherer language and that invading IEs simply did not adopt anything from them since this Uralic zone may have been represented by hunter gatherers who strictly wished not to interact with invading IEs and maintain let's say a hunter gatherer lifestyle.

Most Uralics were farmers quite early on actually. We just kept the hunting as secondary occupation (fur trade made "money", farming made "food"). Finns forexample have been farmers as long as we have existed in Finland (about 2000 years). Farming vocabularity goes back to Bronze Age, and there are archeologically valid evidence for it aswell.

[Hweinlant]

it must be long long time ago because uralics mixed with the european population as they were originally asians.

This has to do with linguistics ? Mods should delete this sort of off-topic nonsense.

[Vesuvian Sky]

Most Uralics were farmers quite early on actually. We just kept the hunting as secondary occupation (fur trade made "money", farming made "food"). Finns forexample have been farmers as long as we have existed in Finland (about 2000 years). Farming vocabularity goes back to Bronze Age, and there are archeologically valid evidence for it aswell.

I was referring to parts of Combed Ware culture that are viewed as being Uralic hunter gatherer. Farming does not seem to really take significant effect in the Baltic littoral region until 3000-2000 BC.

[Hweinlant]

I was referring to parts of Combed Ware culture that are viewed as being Uralic hunter gatherer. Farming does not seem to really take significant effect in the Baltic littoral region until 3000-2000 BC.

Around 2000bc would be pretty good estimate for Uralics (in strict sense) to reach Baltic littoral from the nearby Central Russia. Anyhow, it has been recently discovered that farming has actually been practised at North Europe much longer than previously thought. It just was not cereal farming, but buckwheat. Also it did not come from Middle East but via the steppes from East Asia. There are other similar pollen analysis carried on at the Balkans, which show the the presence of buckwheat around 4.000bc aswell.

The early stages of agriculture in the Boreal forests of Northern Europe remain poorly understood. Although pottery appeared during the 6th millennium B.C., this has not been seen as an indication of a true Neolithic in the north. In later prehistory, vast parts of the region are thought to have remained a wilderness. In order to test these assumptions, a high-resolution pollen analysis and an archaeological survey were carried out at Lake Huhdasjärvi, SE Finland. The results indicate signs of cultivation already by the early Neolithic, 5260–4260 B.C., and slash-and-burn cultivation concentrated on deciduous forests is recorded from ca. A.D. 600 onwards. By A.D. 930, an intensive form of swidden cultivation began in the coniferous forests, indicating a well-established agricultural settlement. The discovery of Neolithic (late 6th millennium B.C.) buckwheat pollen suggests that the roots of agriculture in northernmost Europe may have to be searched for in China rather than the Near East.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/1...gea.21428/full

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckwheat