Mazik
03-26-2015, 09:52 PM
Historically there were two kinds of Saami people in Sweden. The fell Saami who lived a semi-nomadic life and herded reindeers, and the forest Saami who lived more like old hunter-gatherers through hunting, fishing etc. The forest Saamis lived all over the northern inland regions of Sweden, but in numbers they were much more prominent in the southern Saami regions. The forest Saami culture pretty much died out between the 17th and 19th century. It was replaced by Swedish culture as well as the fell Saami culture. Today most Saami people and descendants of Saamis in the inland regions of Västerbotten (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V%C3%A4sterbotten_County) can trace their ancestry back to forest Saamis.
I have lately been thinking if the original forest Saami and the original fell Saami people could have a (partially) different origin. Lately there has been a rise of people descending from forest Saami villages tested with FTDNA. Speaking about Y-DNA, so far almost all of them I have seen got R1a. My grandfather also has R1a and his paternal line is traced back to a forest Saami village. While R1a is generally quite uncommon among the Saami.
I know that north Saamis and south Saamis form two separate clusters. In terms of autosomal DNA. Could that be due to more forest Saami ancestry in the southern Saami regions?
I am just speculating and want to hear some thoughts and inputs from you.
I have lately been thinking if the original forest Saami and the original fell Saami people could have a (partially) different origin. Lately there has been a rise of people descending from forest Saami villages tested with FTDNA. Speaking about Y-DNA, so far almost all of them I have seen got R1a. My grandfather also has R1a and his paternal line is traced back to a forest Saami village. While R1a is generally quite uncommon among the Saami.
I know that north Saamis and south Saamis form two separate clusters. In terms of autosomal DNA. Could that be due to more forest Saami ancestry in the southern Saami regions?
I am just speculating and want to hear some thoughts and inputs from you.