Why are "Baltic" Lithuanians(and Latvians) so heavily FinN1C?

[Polako]

I was talking about this in general, but you do have a point. For instance, the Scandinavians may speak Indo-European languages, but they're actually native Northern-Europeans who took over Indo-European languages through cultural(not demic) diffusion. The same applies to Western-Europeans. The most "Indo-European" Europeans live in the Balkans, that's where the demic diffusion happened.

Why can't you understand the difference between...

a) Neolithic farmers

b) Indo-European pastoralists

Can you explain to me why you keep confusing the two?

[Motörhead Remember Me]

In reality, the Balts have a lot of Finnic influence, this is visible by their genetic closeness to the Estonians. For Polako, Finnic = Finnish. While in reality, at one point, the Veps lived so far east that they bordered the Komi. There were also populations(that disappeared/assimilated without a trace) further south and west.

Latvia is a good example to take, 1000 years ago it was quite Livonian, but the Latvians gradually assimilated the Livonians. I am rather certain if I say that every single Latvian has some Livonian blood running in his/her veins. When Riga was founded it was a Livonian/Finnic town, not a Baltic town.

Thus claims by Polako that the Balts do not have any Finnic influence at all, 0%, but the Finnics have Baltic influence, are very surprising for me. In reality, it is the opposite, the Balts have recently assimilated the native Finnic populations.

Saying that the Balts do not have Finnic influence is the same as saying that Englishmen are 100% Anglo-Saxon and do not have any Celtic influence, although they assimilated the native Celtic populations.

I agree with you to some extent here. There is something ancient still running around in our veins which is shared by Finnic, Baltic and to ssome extent in north Scandinavian and north western Russian populations.
But what it is, proto-"Finnic", "Uralic", "Baltic" paleo European etc is still a puzzle.

And yes, you are quite right about the history of Riga. It was a Livonian settlement and I remember that there is a historical record that the Livonian chief either invited, sold to or was subjugated by the teutonic knights. I can't remember which.

[Motörhead Remember Me]

N1c is still something of a mystery. There were probably a couple waves of it from the east into Europe, the first one possibly during the late Mesolithic. It was then probably connected to the proto-Finns moving into the Baltic area during the Bronze Age, possibly thanks to the Seima-Turbino phenomenon. But no one really knows.

The Seima Turbino phenomena can be seen as more of a cultural diffusion, not a population movement. It is possible that Seima Turbino gave Volga Ural populations a technological advantage which enabled them to push west.
To credit the spread of an Uralic language to the Baltic shores by the small trickles of the Seima Turbino phenomena is to stretch it a lot because there are no signs of an "Uralic invasion" seen in Baltic archeology.

In any case, modern Balts seem to be the most Mesolithic Europeans in terms of mtDNA and autosomal DNA, and if their N1c is the early version from the "late Mesolithic", then that would fit as well. They have the least amount of Neolithic influence, which is actually much higher in Northwestern Europeans, like Brits and even Scandinavians. You can see why on the map below, with the Neolithic movements seemingly going from Anatolia straight for Germany and France, and not really bothering with the east Baltic, where the land wasn't suitable for agriculture. Finns are also very "Mesolithic", but you guys have the later stuff from the east that the Balts largely lack (except, to some degree, Latvians from around Livonia).

That "stuff" from the east is this:
There is ancient rock art found from Norway in the west all across Fennoscandinavia all the way to east of the Urals which is quite uniform and reveals the presence of an arctic hunter gatherer people spanning all across northern Eurasia. These were not proto-Samis who are mainly of European origin, but a people present in the area before the proto-Sami.

This fits nicely with the idea that when the forefathers of those who we may regard as proto-Sami people pushed north they met and bred with the first arctic inhabitants of the area. When the forefathers of Norse and Baltic Finns (and later Slavs) gradually pushed north, they in turn met and bred with the proto Sami populations who by this time had absorbed a significant portion of the first arctic inhabitants.
Why Finns show the most of this “ancient Asian” imprint is obvious.

Take the population history of Kuusamo which is well documented and in broad swipes goes like this: In late 17th century, predominantly males but also families from Savo in central Finland cleared lands for agriculture in the Kuusamo area, which was Sami land. The men took mostly Sami wives. But also Sami men married into the growing Kuusamo population.
The Kuusamo sample reflect very clear where the “ancient Asian” (Polakos eastern stuff) comes from. How the population came to be in Kuusamo may have very well happened to a varying degree all over Finland and northern Scandinavia (I have also previously commented that Kuusamo references in genetical studies are only intresting in the sense that it allows us to see where an isolated population stemming from two different ethnic backgrounds positions in relation to other Finns).

Vologda Russians have this increased ancient Asian, but it does not first come from the Finno-Ugrian peoples usually thought to be the original inhabitants, but actually from the people who were there before the Finno-Ugrians.
Case example here: The Komi population history is quite well known and plays a significant role in explaining what have happened. The Komi expansion to the northeastern White Sea area happened during Iron age and there they partially absorbed an arctic people. In the wake of the Komi the Slavs emerged.

This is also why we don't see this much of this "stuff" in the Estonian samples.

[Motörhead Remember Me]

Riga was founded by crusaders.
It was not likely that native people lived in towns/cities as they didn't had the right to leave their rural areas.

What right? People creating the settlements needed no right to be there.

The coastal settlements were "towns", there people met a and traded ever since pre historical times. All over the north it was like this. Then they evolved into towns, often by conquest because the places were established and lucrative.

[lei.talk]

Founding of Riga
The river Daugava has been a trade route since antiquity, part of the Vikings' Dvina-Dnieper navigation route to Byzantium. A sheltered natural harbour 15 km (9.3 mi) upriver from the mouth of the Daugava — the site of today's Riga — has been recorded, as Duna Urbs, as early as the 2nd century. It was settled by the Livs, an ancient Finnic tribe.

Riga began to develop as a centre of Viking trade during the early Middle Ages. Riga's inhabitants occupied themselves mainly with fishing, animal husbandry, and trading, later developing crafts (in bone, wood, amber, and iron).

The Chronicle of Henry of Livonia testifies to Riga having long been a trading centre by the 12th century, referring to it as portus antiquus (ancient port), and describes dwellings and warehouses used to store mostly corn, flax, and hides. German traders began visiting Riga, establishing a nearby outpost in 1158.

Along with German traders also arrived the monk Meinhard of Segeberg to convert the pagans to Christianity. (Catholic and Orthodox Christianity had already arrived in Latvia more than a century earlier, and many Latvians baptised) Meinhard settled among the Livs, building a castle and church at Ikšķile, upstream from Riga, and established his bishopric there. The Livs, however, continued to practice paganism and Meinhard died in Ikšķile in 1196, having failed his mission. In 1198 the Bishop Bertold arrived with a contingent of crusaders and commenced a campaign of forced Christianization. Bertold was killed soon afterwards and his forces defeated.

The Church mobilised to avenge. Pope Innocent III issued a bull declaring a crusade against the Livonians. Bishop Albert was proclaimed Bishop of Livonia by his uncle Hartwig of Uthlede, Prince-Archbishop of Bremen and Hamburg in 1199. Albert landed in Riga in 1200 with 23 ships and 500 Westphalian crusaders. In 1201 he transferred the seat of the Livonian bishopric from Ikšķile to Riga, extorting agreement to do so from the elders of Riga by force.

[Jaska]

Not everything in Wiik's theories is wrong, I think you agree wtih me here.
The idea to track a language, people and culture is best done by a multidisciplinary approach. It give contradicting results but it should do that! History is not simple, it's full of twists and turns.

Multidisciplinary approach was there long before Wiik. He gave nothing extra value to it, except the erroneous method, and this wasn't his idea, either - he merely copied some internationals researchers. What is right in Wiik's view, is the results of the autonomous disciplines, which he collected from the studies of these disciplines.

History is not simple, but Wiik tried to force it to be simple. But the languages cannot be seen in the genes, no matter how simple it would be; and tha languages do not change only due to the contacts, no matter how simple it would be.

I for sure don't understand a shit in Komi language but German and English is a piece of cake so I don't really understand this statement of yours (you don't have to tell me, I am a layman). Maybe you refer to the similiarities in grammar?

Komi is not a Finnic language, it is one of the Finno-Permic languages. It is common misunderstanding in the "Indo-European" world to think that Finno-Ugric language family consists of Finnic and Ugric. But it does not: it consists of Finno-Permic and Ugric. Finnic consists only of Finnish, Karelian, Ludian, Vepsian, Votian, Estonian and Livonian. Some see Ingrian and Võro-Seto as independent languages.

So, Estonian and Finnish are more similar than English and German, and Vepsian and Livonian are more similar than English and Swedish.

But you must take the Finnic languages icebox effect into consideration !! The Finnic languages evolves slower.

Finnish has evolved slowly, while Estonian, Livonian etc. have evolved faster. And the artificial literary Finnish is more conservative in many respects than any actual Finnish dialect. And Finnish is not any more "icebox" than Icelandic in the Scandinavian branch. And Baltic languages are even more conservative. In Proto-Finno-Saamic there was a word *šalna 'frost', which is halla in Finnish and suoldni in Northern Saami. It is an old Baltic loanword, and in Lithuanian it is still šalna.

Language does not change at the same speed all the time. In Germanic languages there was a long period of slow change, and then suddenly at the middle of the first millennium AD there occurred a period of fast change; but from 1000 AD onwards, Scandinavian languages have not changed so much.

Similarly, in Finnic branch there was a period of faster change about 1000-0 BC, when the Finnic languages developed very different from other Uralic branches. But after that the speed of change has been slower, at least in Finnish and Vepsian, but faster in Estonian and Livonian.

[Jaska]

Thus claims by Polako that the Balts do not have any Finnic influence at all, 0%, but the Finnics have Baltic influence, are very surprising for me. In reality, it is the opposite, the Balts have recently assimilated the native Finnic populations.

Actually Polako said nothing about 0 %. He wrote:
“But Western Finns are most similar Finns to North and Central Europeans, so this isn't a strong argument for Finnic influence in Balts, but rather Baltic and Germanic influence in Western Finns.”

Migrants? Us Basques and Finno-Ugrians are natives of our land, you Indo-Europeans, are migrants.
Saying that the Indo-Europeans were in North-Eastern Europe before the Finno-Ugrians, is extreme Indo-European chauvinism. Nothing backs it up. It is practically a fact that we were here before, but there's only one question. Have we been here for 6000 years or 12 000 years.

Please read the scientific links I gave you in the earlier messages. Don’t make fool of yourself by repeating such a crap. It seems clear for the present-day linguists that Indo-European language spread earlier than Uralic language.

All the peoples of Europe have partially ancient roots, but it may well be that all these language families have origins outside Europe: Basque in Africa, Indo-European in Near East and Uralic in South-Siberia/Central Asia. 2 000 years ago there were still spoken many Palaeo-European languages from Mediterranean Coast to Lapland, but since then they all have disappeared.

You do remember, that cultural continuity cannot prove the linguistic continuity, don't you? Please read those links I gave, at last.

The Seima Turbino phenomena can be seen as more of a cultural diffusion, not a population movement. It is possible that Seima Turbino gave Volga Ural populations a technological advantage which enabled them to push west.
To credit the spread of an Uralic language to the Baltic shores by the small trickles of the Seima Turbino phenomena is to stretch it a lot because there are no signs of an "Uralic invasion" seen in Baltic archeology.

Seima-Turbino culture seems to have been male-concerned: the bronze-traders lived among the natives of different areas, they didn’ have dwellings of their own. This may explain why the strong Easternness is seen in the paternal lineages alone.

But Seima-Turbino is an Early Bronze Age phenomenon, it can be connected only to the spread of Uralic protodialects. At this period the West-Uralic languages didn’t proceed farther than Ladoga area. Only 1 000 years later did the Middle Proto-Finnic people start to expand to Estonia, and still more than 1 000 years later did the Livonians proceed into the Curland.

So, there even cannot be any single archaeologically perceivable expansion from Middle-Volga to Latvia. The process took many steps at different times, involving different cultures.

[Motörhead Remember Me]

Seima-Turbino culture seems to have been male-concerned: the bronze-traders lived among the natives of different areas, they didn’ have dwellings of their own. This may explain why the strong Easternness is seen in the paternal lineages alone.

But Seima-Turbino is an Early Bronze Age phenomenon, it can be connected only to the spread of Uralic protodialects. At this period the West-Uralic languages didn’t proceed farther than Ladoga area. Only 1 000 years later did the Middle Proto-Finnic people start to expand to Estonia, and still more than 1 000 years later did the Livonians proceed into the Curland.
So, there even cannot be any single archaeologically perceivable expansion from Middle-Volga to Latvia. The process took many steps at different times, involving different cultures.

Language does not equal genetics, but you are linking the N1c haplotype to the spread of Uralic languages? The men who mediated the Seima Turbino bronze culture cannot have brought Uralic languages with them because it's usually the mothers who pass on a language, how can a small group of men brought with them an Uralic language which apparently so totally spread over such a large area that it in practice wiped out earlier languages?
This would have required Uralic speaking women moving with them, but that is not seen in MtDNA haplotypes which would have spread from eastern central Asia.
It is usually explained that in western Finland, despite the evident migration of men from Scandinavia, it was the women who passed on the (proto-)Finnish language which broke the Germanic language continuity between bronze age and early medieval times. The Germanic movement into Finland was at a larger scale than the Seima Turbino male migration from central Asia which can be called a trickle in comparison.

[Jaska]

Language does not equal genetics, but you are linking the N1c haplotype to the spread of Uralic languages?

That is correct. There are too different things, which are hard for some people to distinguish.

1. Unscientific method = one sees that haplogroup N1c is found within many Uralic peoples; then he claims that N1c is everywhere and every time connected to Uralic language. This method is erroneous, because it leads to contradicting results and because language cannot be seen from the genes.

2. Scientific method = one sees that haplogroup N1c is found within many Uralic peoples, but it is just an observation. To find out if N1c could be connected to the spread of Proto-Uralic, he looks at the linguistic results and sees that Proto-Uralic seems to have expanded from Middle Volga about 4 000 years ago. At that time haplogroup N1c already seems to have been there, so it is likely that there were N1c-men (and others, too) among the Proto-Uralic speakers.
To find out if the earliest N1c in Baltia could be connected to Uralic language, he looks at the linguistic evidence and sees that Northern Baltia only got Uralicized no earlier than at the last millennium BC, while Southern Baltia was never Uralicized. And yet it seems that N1c spread to Baltia much earlier, and even to the Southern Baltia. Therefore the earliest N1c in Baltia cannot be connected to Uralic language.

The men who mediated the Seima Turbino bronze culture cannot have brought Uralic languages with them because it's usually the mothers who pass on a language, how can a small group of men brought with them an Uralic language which apparently so totally spread over such a large area that it in practice wiped out earlier languages?

Yes, usually mothers. But we cannot exclude the prestige factor here: for local women (if the bronze traders didn't bring women of their own) it was better that their children could learn also the fathers language; and in some later generation this newcomer-language (opening gates to richness and happiness) may have become the only language.

Similar action can be seen today; even in Finland there are purely Finnish-speaking families who want their children to be fluent also in English.

This would have required Uralic speaking women moving with them, but that is not seen in MtDNA haplotypes which would have spread from eastern central Asia.

No women needed, see above.
Eastern Central Asia? No need for that, the Proto-Uralic area was in Europe, in Volga-Kama area. And it may still turn out that there are larger portion of eastern maternal lineages, because the maternal lineages are so widespread in Europe that it is possible that some of them came to Finland from the east. Hopefully the growing accuracy in mtDNA-studies will help us with defining the source areas.

It is usually explained that in western Finland, despite the evident migration of men from Scandinavia, it was the women who passed on the (proto-)Finnish language which broke the Germanic language continuity between bronze age and early medieval times. The Germanic movement into Finland was at a larger scale than the Seima Turbino male migration from central Asia which can be called a trickle in comparison.

But in this case, too, the area may have been earlier Germanicized and later Finnicized. We know from the place names that Germanic and Middle Proto-Finnic peoples arrived at the same time (~500 BC) to the west coast of Finland, but we don't know which language was more widespread there. But we know that Germanic speakers were only assimilated after Late Proto-Finnic spread to Finland (~300-500 AD), because there are at least three Germanic placename layers of different ages. This strongly points to that Germanic language was indeed permanently spread to Western Finland before it was totally Finnicized.

And also here we can only see the immigration of prestigious male groups - the case seems very similar to the Seima-Turbino phenomenon.

[Motörhead Remember Me]

Eastern Central Asia? .

I meant this is from where Seima-Turbino phenomenon spread.

Ok, when Seima Turbino bronze technique spread from Central Asia to Urals the Ural populations were propelled further west thanks to this new trade of bronze artifacts.
It does not mean people rushed from central Asia to the Baltics.