Post by Admin on Oct 18, 2023 20:44:48 GMT
Fig. 1
Geographic distribution of the Uralic-speaking populations and the schematic tree of the Uralic languages. a The geographic spread of the Uralic-speaking populations. Colour coding corresponds to the respective language in panel b. b Schematic representation of the phylogeny of the Uralic languages. Pie diagrams indicate the relative share of West and East Eurasian mitochondrial (mtDNA) and Y chromosomal (Y) lineages. Data from Additional file 5: Table S4 and Additional file 6: Table S5
The question as which material cultures may have co-spread together with proto-Uralic and Uralic languages depends on the time estimates of the splits in the Uralic language tree. Deeper age estimates (6,000 BP) of the Uralic language tree suggest a connection between the spread of FU languages from the Volga River basin towards the Baltic Sea either with the expansion of the Neolithic culture of Combed Ware, e.g. [6, 7, 17, 26] or with the Neolithic Volosovo culture [7]. Younger age estimates support a link between the westward dispersion of Proto-Finno-Saamic and eastward dispersion of Proto-Samoyedic with a BA Sejma-Turbino (ST) cultural complex [14, 18, 27, 28] that mediated the diffusion of specific metal tools and weapons from the Altai Mountains over the Urals to Northern Europe or with the Netted Ware culture [23], which succeeded Volosovo culture in the west. It has been suggested that Proto-Uralic may have even served as the lingua franca of the merchants involved in the ST phenomenon [18]. All these scenarios imply that material culture of the Baltic Sea area in Europe was influenced by cultures spreading westward from the periphery of Europe and/or Siberia. Whether these dispersals involved the spread of both languages and people remains so far largely unknown.
Previous genetic studies have shown that demographic histories of Uralic-speaking populations inferred from maternally inherited mitochondrial (mtDNA) and paternally inherited Y chromosomes (chrY) are different. MtDNA studies of Uralic speakers suggest that the distribution of Western and Eastern Eurasian components is mostly determined by geography [29,30,31,32]. Thus, Western and Eastern Eurasian mtDNA lineages co-occur only in their contact zone in the Circum-Uralic region [29, 31, 33]. In contrast, the spread of paternal lineages among Uralic speakers in Europe does not follow this pattern: up to one half of males belong to the pan-North Eurasian chrY haplogroup (hg) N3a, which is closely related to lineages found in Siberian and East Asian populations [34,35,36]. This hg is virtually absent or rare in Southern Europe and in IE-speaking Scandinavians [30, 35, 37,38,39,40,41,42]. A recent study suggests that the high frequency of N3a lineages in Eastern and Northern Europe is due to a demic expansion from East Eurasia within the last 5000 years [35, 36]. It has also been suggested that certain hg N3a3`6 sub-branches may have co-spread with ST tools and possibly also FU languages [36].
Our goal in this study was to test whether the Uralic-speaking peoples share recent common genetic ancestry in their genomes. Specifically, we tested whether the clear signal of migration between East Eurasia and Europe that is present in the distribution of paternal lineages could be also detected in the patterns of autosomal variation. It has been shown earlier that the genetic landscape of northern and northeastern European populations displays affinities with Siberia [43,44,45] and today the components of East Eurasian origin are seen most prominently among the Fennoscandian Saami [46, 47], where they constitute about 13% of their genomes [47]. To this end, we generated a dataset of genome-wide genetic variation at over half a million genomic positions (Additional file 1: Table S1) for 15 Uralic-speaking populations (Additional file 2: Table S2), covering the main groups of the language family. We analysed this dataset in the context of relevant European and Asian populations.
Geographic distribution of the Uralic-speaking populations and the schematic tree of the Uralic languages. a The geographic spread of the Uralic-speaking populations. Colour coding corresponds to the respective language in panel b. b Schematic representation of the phylogeny of the Uralic languages. Pie diagrams indicate the relative share of West and East Eurasian mitochondrial (mtDNA) and Y chromosomal (Y) lineages. Data from Additional file 5: Table S4 and Additional file 6: Table S5
The question as which material cultures may have co-spread together with proto-Uralic and Uralic languages depends on the time estimates of the splits in the Uralic language tree. Deeper age estimates (6,000 BP) of the Uralic language tree suggest a connection between the spread of FU languages from the Volga River basin towards the Baltic Sea either with the expansion of the Neolithic culture of Combed Ware, e.g. [6, 7, 17, 26] or with the Neolithic Volosovo culture [7]. Younger age estimates support a link between the westward dispersion of Proto-Finno-Saamic and eastward dispersion of Proto-Samoyedic with a BA Sejma-Turbino (ST) cultural complex [14, 18, 27, 28] that mediated the diffusion of specific metal tools and weapons from the Altai Mountains over the Urals to Northern Europe or with the Netted Ware culture [23], which succeeded Volosovo culture in the west. It has been suggested that Proto-Uralic may have even served as the lingua franca of the merchants involved in the ST phenomenon [18]. All these scenarios imply that material culture of the Baltic Sea area in Europe was influenced by cultures spreading westward from the periphery of Europe and/or Siberia. Whether these dispersals involved the spread of both languages and people remains so far largely unknown.
Previous genetic studies have shown that demographic histories of Uralic-speaking populations inferred from maternally inherited mitochondrial (mtDNA) and paternally inherited Y chromosomes (chrY) are different. MtDNA studies of Uralic speakers suggest that the distribution of Western and Eastern Eurasian components is mostly determined by geography [29,30,31,32]. Thus, Western and Eastern Eurasian mtDNA lineages co-occur only in their contact zone in the Circum-Uralic region [29, 31, 33]. In contrast, the spread of paternal lineages among Uralic speakers in Europe does not follow this pattern: up to one half of males belong to the pan-North Eurasian chrY haplogroup (hg) N3a, which is closely related to lineages found in Siberian and East Asian populations [34,35,36]. This hg is virtually absent or rare in Southern Europe and in IE-speaking Scandinavians [30, 35, 37,38,39,40,41,42]. A recent study suggests that the high frequency of N3a lineages in Eastern and Northern Europe is due to a demic expansion from East Eurasia within the last 5000 years [35, 36]. It has also been suggested that certain hg N3a3`6 sub-branches may have co-spread with ST tools and possibly also FU languages [36].
Our goal in this study was to test whether the Uralic-speaking peoples share recent common genetic ancestry in their genomes. Specifically, we tested whether the clear signal of migration between East Eurasia and Europe that is present in the distribution of paternal lineages could be also detected in the patterns of autosomal variation. It has been shown earlier that the genetic landscape of northern and northeastern European populations displays affinities with Siberia [43,44,45] and today the components of East Eurasian origin are seen most prominently among the Fennoscandian Saami [46, 47], where they constitute about 13% of their genomes [47]. To this end, we generated a dataset of genome-wide genetic variation at over half a million genomic positions (Additional file 1: Table S1) for 15 Uralic-speaking populations (Additional file 2: Table S2), covering the main groups of the language family. We analysed this dataset in the context of relevant European and Asian populations.