Originally Posted by
Joqool
the lowest EEF in Europe (at around 15% on average which is even less than other Uralics)
It's not lower than Nenetses. And even though Nenetses have arrived to Europe fairly recently, Siberian-like populations have inhabited the tundra regions of Europe since at least the time of Bolshoy Oleny Ostrov in the second millennium BC.
According to Nenets tradition, a people called Sikhirtya or Sirtya (Сихиртя or Сиртя) were the former inhabitants of Nenets regions of Europe: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Сиртя.
A Russian book about Sikhirtya speculated that Sikhirtya were a Samoyedic people who expanded to Europe before Nenetses (https://www.bulgari-istoria-2010.com...y_sibiri_5.pdf):
B.C. Burdov (1965, p. 257) wrote: "... the hunters of the sea beast, whom the Nenets called Siirtya [сииртя], could be the same Nenets, speaking only a special dialect of the Nenets language." That the Nenets understood the speech of Sikirtya, JI.A Chindina wrote (1992, p. 20).
The most reliable information should be considered from the Nenets. JI.B. Khomich (1970, 1976, p. 57, 58) quotes the words of the Nenets informant I. Salinder, who explained that they speak "As if in Nenets, only stuttering, but you can understand." If you rely on this message, then we can assume that the language of Sikhirt was Samoyed. [...]
Perhaps the ethnonym comes from from Nen. сихирць 'acquire an earthy complexion'. Or, according to the position of G.D. Verbova (Khomich L.V., 1976, p. 58), Nen. сихирць 'avoid, avoid'. Of these versions, the second seems to us preferable. L.V. Khomich (1964) proposed the following etymology: the ethnonym is based on the verb сиць 'make a hole, a hole' (Nen. си 'hole, hole'). However, L.P. Lashuk (1968, p. 190, 191) considered this etymology contrary to morphological norms Nenets language. A.V. Golovnev (1998) proposed a different etymology, which he reduces to Nen. си (ся) 'entrance to another world, sacred input'. [...]
Later, in 1953, V.N. Chernetsov quite definitely connected the ethnonym sikhirtya with the Ugric ethnonym сабир (савыр, сибир, сипыр). He derived the ethnonym s'ihir-t'a [written in the Latin alphabet; the letter h is superscripted] (the restored form s'ibir-t'an) from s'iBir, and he defined the second component -t'an as the general self-name of the Arctic tribes with meaning people. [...]
V.P. Chernetsov (1935) reported that the Nenets of the Venong clan, the patrimonies of the Northern Yamal, still met on the Yamal people living in earthen houses and hunting for sea animals. Nenets entered with them both in military clashes and in marital unions. V.P. Chernetsov even cites the pedigree of one of the branches of the Wenong clan, whose woman was married to the last sikhirtya. [...]
Nenets from Dolgoshelje (the tundra to the west of the lower geographic course of the Mezen river in the Urals) consider themselves the descendants of sikhirtya (Khomich JI.B., 1970). Nenka P.A. Khanzerova, who lived in 1968 on the Kanin Peninsula, reported that her grandfather and grandmother also considered themselves descendants of sikhirtya. [...]
P.-M. Lamartinier in the book "Traveling to the North Country", published in 1671, provides a description of the dwellings of the Borandays [борандайцев], the indigenous inhabitants of the Mezen tundra. Borandays lived in huts that were very carefully made of fish (cetaceans? - A.M.) bones. The huts were also covered with fish bones, mossed on top and lined around turf so good that no wind can penetrate inside otherwise both through doors arranged like a furnace mouth, and through a roof in which a window or hole is arranged through which light penetrates (Vasiliev V.I., 1970, p. 153).
A. Schrenk (1855) from the words of the Samoyeds gives a rather detailed description of the dwellings of sikhirtya. In the hills lying along the banks of Сииртеты (now the Сибирка River), a tributary of the Kara there are miraculous [чудские; en tiedä tarkoittaako tämä tshuudeja] caves in which copper and cast-iron were once found boilers with tin and lead residues. These hills are known among the Samoyeds under the name of Siirtes [сииртес]. Hills of almost quadrangular shape, their inside is empty and represents a quadrangular space, the walls of which are carved with beams like Russian living rooms. Only their roofs were not covered with tesa, why, in almost all caves, they failed or are believed to have been destroyed by industrialists who were looking for prey. Doors or exits of these underground huts were low and always facing east. The underground construction of aboriginal housing (according to A. Schrenk, it was a Finnish miracle [miracle = chud]) better protected from the cold and cold winds.
From an English-language conclusion of the book:
Coincidence of the area of settlement of Sikhirtya (according to Nenets legends) and the range of hydronyms on -бей allows you to combine them into a paradigm of genetic connection. Its toponymic field covers in the Arctic zone a vast territory from the Gydan Peninsula in the east to the Bolshezemelskaya tundra on west. Toponyms for -бей have a clear ethnic affinity: they were created by Samoyeds of Kulay culture, who once spoke the Kamasin language. Distribution of toponyms on -бей in the vast territory from the Sayan Mountains in the south to Yamal and the Polar Cis-Urals in the north is associated with the resettlement of Kulay carriers culture around the turn of the era (Fig. 36). It was the descendants of the Kulays that the Nenets, the recent inhabitants of the tundra, called Sikhirtya.
Who is genetically more unique in terms of European genetics: Sardinian or Saami?
A238
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