The Saami are not in no way a typical northern European population, nor are they in fact a typical arctic population either. If you read the works of old anthropologists you will notice that according to them Saamis are both shorter and more gracile than the Northeast Asian populations (Saamis fex have weak mandibles, where as Siberian populations have strong mandibles). So in that sense it becomes nonsense to explain their physical type only through their Siberian genes.
Here is a picture from Madison Grant I believe
The skull on the left is a Eskimo skull and the skull on the right is 'supposed' to be a Sami skull. Personally I believe that the skull on the right is some strange trolling from Grants part. It looks extremely peculiar to be a typical skull of any population. It could be that it is a childs skull fex. Nevertheless modern science also has confirmed that Saami are a bit of a enigma what comes to physical type. It is a well known fact that Arctic populations tend to harbor very large brain capacities, but Saamis are a bit below European average in this regard whereas Finns fex have very large heads
http://yle.fi/uutiset/big-headed_fin...charts/7266267
I think it could be possible, that they have, as a population, at some point went through long periods of extreme famine, which has had a effect on their physical type.
Bookmarks